This is probably the hardest thing to learn to do well, everyone struggles with it. Letting go of your ego and the thought that “the bike is my strength, I need to make up time” is important. If the bike is your strength, then know by going the same pace as your competitors (or perhaps slightly faster) you are going to come off the bike feeling far better than they will.
Learning to pace yourself in training is the best place to start. Find a 3 or 4 lap route in your area where the total distance ads up to ~180km. You could even make it a 2 x 90km loop. Your only goal for that long ride is to have each lap faster than the last. Don’t make it easy on yourself by lallygagging the first lap or two, pick an approximate HR or effort at which you think you may want to race an Ironman. Once you’ve got your numbers, think back to where you may have gone wrong or where you could go faster. Can you still run off the bike? Did you take in enough calories? Try doing this ride 3 times before your next Ironman and you’ll learn some valuable lessons BEFORE race day.
Ironman is not about riding fast (in most cases). It’s about riding as fast as you can while still being able to run the remaining 42 km’s. How many times have you heard – “If only I didn’t fall apart on the run!!”. Guaranteed 90% of those situations could have been avoided by riding smart.
