Brian Burns

This is a guide, not a script. You do not need to memorize it. The ranges give you room to race the body and conditions you actually have on Sunday. Every part of the range is good execution.

Your A-race goal is a complete swim, bike, and run that showcases the fitness you have built. The Kona question will answer itself afterward. Out there, you can control your line in the water, your decisions on the bike, your fueling and drinking, and how you respond when the run gets hard. Keep your head and race your race.

“If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs…”
— Rudyard Kipling, If—

That is your race-day mindset. Other people's surges, bike splits, and apparent positions are noise. Put the blinders on and make the decision that serves your entire day.

Swim efficiently and exit ready to ride. On the bike, turn your training into steady forward progress across three rolling laps without repeatedly paying for rises, U-turns, or other riders' choices. Continue the fueling and drinking that have worked in training. The bike and run are a combination: the condition of your legs and mind at T2 matters more than the bike split. Then run the terrain you have, stay engaged when it gets difficult, and finish strongly.

These are guides, not demands. Lower output or HR can be the correct response to heat, rising effort, interrupted intake, or deteriorating mechanics. A low HR by itself is not a reason to force pace or power when the body says otherwise.

The long drive and a poor night of sleep make recovery the priority. Nothing scheduled for the rest of race week is obligatory. Rested matters more than sharp. Any harmless flatness can clear as you settle into the race; fatigue is much harder to shake.

Arrive with the hydration and breakfast routine that has worked in training. If you use two sports-drink bottles before the start, spread them across the pre-race period at a familiar rate, account for their carbohydrate in the breakfast plan, and allow time to use the bathroom. Do not force a last-minute volume. Carry the practiced bike fueling and fluid setup, with a workable aid-station backup.

Use the shuttle and transition schedule announced by the race. Keep helmet and cycling shoes in the bike gear bag as required in the 2026 guide. Follow the race-morning wetsuit ruling and swim briefing.

Self-seed honestly. Establish breathing, a clean line, and an efficient stroke. Sight for yourself, especially if current, glare, chop, or other swimmers alter the apparent line. The river flows downcourse, but the amount of assistance on race morning is unknown. A quick split is not extra fitness to spend on the bike; a slow split is not time to repay. Stand up at the exit, collect yourself, and move through T1 deliberately.

The bike overview. In neutral conditions, flat-road work belongs around 205–215 W on the screen in real time, with 134–138 bpm a reference when the air and your body support it. Adjust the live-wattage range for wind and grade below. Do not try to turn 210 W into an average-power or normalized-power goal. Shift before the gear becomes a grind. Maintain an easy-to-repeat cadence and resist the little surge over each crest. Three laps make small mistakes repeat.

How to ride the terrain and wind. Apply these rules on each lap; they describe what you do in the moment, not the average you try to manufacture afterward.

Wind can change direction between northbound and southbound legs. Easing into a headwind, doing efficient work with a tailwind, allowing more power uphill, and reducing it downhill should balance the course demands without chasing a bike average. They do not guarantee an exact mathematical offset: repeated high-power spikes can cost more than the same watts saved elsewhere. Stay out of prolonged threshold work and do not burn matches to defend a split. Rain, crosswinds, and crowded passing take priority over aero posture or a power number. Ride the bike you need to be able to run from.

Early rust protocol: Ross's Landing through the urban exit. Navigate turns, other riders, and the mount area safely. The first task is to get organized: shifting, cadence, posture, breathing, and the start of your practiced intake. When the road is safe and open, let power rise naturally into the operating range. A few familiar, low-cost cadence changes are fine if your legs feel flat; no hard interval or test is needed. Unusual breathlessness, dizziness, pain, or HR that stays disproportionate to easy output is not rust.

First northbound and southbound legs. Use the flats to settle into repeatable work. Let speed vary with the rolling terrain and wind. Approach the Tsati Terrace and Signal Mountain Boulevard U-turns in control, exit in a usable gear, and return smoothly to work. Feed before complex sections when practical; resume the schedule afterward. Pass legally and decisively when needed, or drop back. This is a keep your head moment: another rider's pace is not an instruction.

Middle lap. Keep making the same sound decisions. Compare watts with HR, breathing, leg feel, temperature, and GI comfort. Continue carbohydrate, fluid, and your practiced sodium strategy separately. If a turn, aid station, or pass disrupts intake, resume a tolerable rhythm rather than taking a large catch-up dose. Take a safe posture reset when it helps. The familiar road should make you calmer, not less attentive.

Mile 70 and the third lap. The start of the third lap is a checkpoint, not a green light. Ask: Can I still ride smoothly? Am I eating and drinking? Are my legs still prepared to run? Has heat made the same watts more expensive? Stay in the supported range when the answers are good; move lower when the cost rises. Keep feeding through the final southbound passage, follow the signed 4th Street exit and urban return, and arrive at T2 able to make clear decisions.

Your high sweat rate makes a reliable drinking rhythm important. Put yourself in a position to maintain it and use the bike to establish a good fluid position for the run. Urinating roughly twice on the bike may be a familiar, useful sign for you, but do not force drinks solely to reach a bathroom count. Use thirst, GI tolerance, temperature, and the plan that worked in training together. If heat pushes HR up for the same watts, lower the cost and use available external cooling; drinking alone cannot erase thermal strain.

T2 and the opening hill. Get up the steep rise leaving T2 without damage. Shorten your stride and keep the effort under control; walk briefly if that is the least costly way to get over it. There is no pace or HR number to chase on that hill. Once on runnable terrain, spend about 10 minutes finding your legs, breathing, and fueling. Err on the easy side through the first mile or two and build into the effort. Do not assume you can run at the top of the range right away. Your numerical run execution begins once you have found your rhythm; there is no debt to repay from this opening.

Runnable river sections after settling. Heart rate leads: gradually work toward 139–144 bpm when breathing, temperature, fueling, and leg function agree. Use 7:40–8:30/mi as a broad, level-ground reference once you have built into your effort. Feeling good can place you toward the quicker side later; a harder patch, humidity, or a fueling adjustment may put you toward the slower side. The whole range is successful racing. There is no need to press early because the first miles feel easy.

How to use the run guardrails. Begin this check only after the T2 hill and approximately 10 minutes of settling, once your stride, breathing, and fueling are organized. On runnable ground, heart rate is the lead indicator; pace describes the result. Neither overrides a clear warning from your body.

If HR is higher than expected because the day is warm, it is a signal to evaluate cost, not an instruction to force the Denver pace at that HR. If HR is lower in cooler conditions, that alone is not permission to race above the plan. The right pairing of HR and pace is the one you can sustain while still fueling, moving well, and making clear decisions.

Battery Place, Veterans Bridge, and Barton/Hixson/Riverview. The grade is the reason pace changes. Keep cost and mechanics controlled on the climbs, then run smoothly on the descents instead of trying to win back an uphill mile. Crossings, turns, and GPS noise make individual mile splits a poor judge. Resume your useful rhythm on the river corridor and keep fueling and cooling as practiced.

Second lap and the final Northshore/bridge work. The run will get hard. Expect that. Expect some pace drift, too; that is part of an IRONMAN run, not a report card. When it happens, check the controllable pieces: breathing, posture, stride, intake, temperature, and the next aid station. Keep moving forward. Your opportunity is to hold together better than the people around you. Starting the second lap or reaching mile 20.6 does not itself grant permission to surge. If your mechanics, GI function, thermal state, intake, and judgment are intact when little race remains, compete with what you have left. Follow the current signs and timing mats through the partial lap to the finish.

Kipling's line is the cue when the race around you gets loud. Put the blinders on. A rider passing, a fast swim split, or a competitor's apparent position cannot tell you what the right effort is. When the Kona thought arrives, acknowledge it and return to the next decision: pacing, fueling, drinking, cooling, or steady forward movement. Those are the investments that make a strong bike–run combination possible. You have built that ability; give it room to appear.

• HR climbs for the same bike watts or run effort: Ease the demand, cool yourself with what the course actually provides, maintain tolerable intake, and reassess. Do not try to win a fight with heat.
• Fueling or drinking is interrupted: Return to the practiced schedule gradually. Avoid a large catch-up dose; reduce effort while the system settles if needed.
• The run pace slips: Check the next controllable action and continue forward. Let hills and humidity change pace without treating the watch as a verdict.
• A delay or poor split: Solve the immediate problem and return to your own race. Never repay lost time with an early surge.

Chest pain, collapse, confusion, severe or unusual shortness of breath, severe dizziness, or inability to stay upright means stop and alert race medical personnel. In the swim, signal safety personnel and use stationary support while awaiting help.