I will agree with Paul on the "attack" issue. Attacking the hills on a bike conjures up putting disproportionate effort into that aspect of the course. This is a bad approach because that likely necessitates your going deeper into your glycogen stores than desired for an extended effort. Roadies talk about "burning matches" in a race, and that you only have so many matches (attacks) in you before you can't attack anymore. Now that many of us have been using power meters for a while, this becomes quite apparent. The more forays one makes into suprathreshold efforts, the lower the power that rider can maintain later in the event; whether it be IM bike leg, or 90 mi road race.

I will play devils advocate a bit on the pacing issue though. There is a school of thought that argues one *should* ride the hills harder than the descents, and this will result in overall faster times. This is a subtle approach to pacing and is certainly not an argument in favor of "attacking" hills. Without a keen understanding of this subtle varied pacing approach though, one is probably safer going with a constant effort pacing approach.

Congrats Paul!

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Steve

http://www.PeaksCoachingGroup.com

There is a school of thought that argues one *should* ride the hills harder than the descents, and this will result in overall faster times. This is a subtle approach to pacing and is certainly not an argument in favor of "attacking" hills.

What you are talking about is exactly what I am advocating. You can't keep an even power profile on hills or else you would be going too easy up and too hard down. In term of overall speed it makes much more sence to use your energy when you don't have wind resistence working against you. My theory is that the way you climb the hills is just as important as how fast you climb it. If I keep a reasonable output that stays fairly constant throughout, I have to believe that is better than the person is doing 500 watts out of the saddle and then 200 watts for the last part of the climb when they sit down. At the end of the day, both of us might actually have the same average power, but the person who remained more constant should be fresher for the run.

Now for me it is hard to draw conclusions based off the run that follows because I run pretty fast--so am I outrunning people for that reason, or because I rode more intelligently or because they trashed themeselves on the bike. Who knows, maybe all three.

Chad

That's all good Khai, just don't go "F*ck you, I won't do what you tell me" on me! ;-)

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