To me it sounded like he was contrasting bike racing to triathlon, saying in a bike race you had to stay with the group, power be damned, and in triathlon it's all about pacing.

Particularly with the last sentence: "In triathlon, if too many matches are burned on the bike, it is likely going to be a long, slow and painful march through the marathon. I’ve learned that lesson the hard way many times in the past but think this new approach could lead to a different outcome this time around."

I agree, there is a lot of ambiguity there allowing you to infer all sorts of things.

But wouldn't you then WANT power for proper pacing?

Power>>perceived effort, every time... especially if you don't ride on the road or in a group that much.
Perceived effort is strongly influenced (manipulated?) by other environmental inputs (according to my experience at least).

For sure you'd want power. He does say he used to train and race by RPE, which is how he rolled into the part about ignoring power to keep with the pack.

I don't know the fellows history, but he looks pretty fit. Hopefully it goes well for him and he has a great race.

Having said that, I would have looked for bike training info much sooner than 9 weeks out from race day and I look at 9 hours per week training for an IM and wonder about that, too. But I'm a slow OCD age-grouper, I need every advantage I can get :)

I can't speak for him, but as someone who also races by RPE, here is what it means to me.

Don't confuse precision and accuracy.

Your PM is very precise, but your FTP target it is not accurate. You do not know your actual FTP on race day. Your actual race day FTP can vary tremendously based on how you ate, slept, and your stress levels in the final few days prior to a race. Your race day FTP also depends on race day environmental factors; heat, humidity, and elevation. So need to learn to race by RPE.

Just blindly sticking to an FTP target is a great way to have "nutritional problems". (Many people pace races improperly, then blame nutrition when things go wrong. They have unending faith in pre-race conceptions of FTP and running pace, based on training, but don't adjust those to how they actually feel when, in the race, things are not as expected.)

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2015 USAT Long Course National Champion (M50-54)

You can save alot of energy sitting legal. So if I knew you would not exceed your PM why wouldn't I just surge for 5 mins to get rid of you?

Pro racing has alot of sustained surges to get rid of those that sit legal. It is called racing.

So far neither response addresses my questions, except that you guys say using power in a race is useless, which I don't subscribe to.

I do race by RPE and use power in a race to keep me in check so that I do not under- / over-race.

If you race using FTP and you don't pace right, you are doing it wrong (not using IF?).

I am also confused how one saves "much" power sitting legal. If you save significant power being legal distance you either draft a truck/semi or a huge pack/group.

Neither is in the spirit of the sport.

I completely agree with your view. If you don't want to burn too many matches early, all the more reason to race with a power meter - but then, he's a more accomplished athelete than I am and what works for him doesn't necessarily need to apply to me.

The slipstream/drafting/race dynamics in cycling seems at best pointless to me in the context - maybe not the race dynamics if you are competing at the pointy end.

As everyone who has done a lot of racing knows, sometimes you have it and sometimes you don't. If you are trying to hold a wattage that your body can't handle on the day, you are setting yourself up for a crappy run. I could see using power as detrimental in this situation

I can see power useful for two reasons:
1. Proper pacing in the first part of the race, to prevent going out too hard.
2. Useful data for future training efforts.

I didn't read it as saying anything nefarious. In first the sentence you've underlined, he is saying that if you want to contend in a bike race, you have to follow the race dynamics regardless of what your powermeter says, which is of course true. In the next underlined sentence, he is saying that too many high-power efforts in a triathlon, i.e., burning matches, will leave you shelled for the run, which is also true. So, bottom line, he saying that power surges are necessary in a bike race and bad in a triathlon. I didn't take it to mean that the power surges you'd make in a triathlon would be for the purpose of getting in a group, as would be the case in a bike race.

The confusing part is he says he's racing by RPE, but the points he makes weigh in favor of using a powermeter.

Exactly- He seems to be strongly arguing against his own decision. Anyone who feels the RPE at the beginning of a well paced IM bike feels anything like that at the end is deluded. If he has a power meter for the bike it's just plain silly not to race with it.

YMMV,

Hugh

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Genetics load the gun, lifestyle pulls the trigger.

Uh, no: even remaining the required distance behind a single rider provides a measurable benefit. That's why in cycling TTs the drafting "box" extends back 10 m, and you're not allowed to enter it at all (in contrast to some triathletes who will ride right up on someone's wheel, sit there for a couple of seconds, then drop back the required distance, and repeat the process over and over).

PPP: "Power calibrates perceived exertion; perceived exertion modulates power." - Charles Howe

"Your actual race day FTP can vary tremendously based on how you ate, slept, and your stress levels in the final few days prior to a race. Your race day FTP also depends on race day environmental factors; heat, humidity, and elevation. So need to learn to race by RPE."

be careful! you just made the case for heart rate monitors! you know what happens to people here who advocate using heart rate versus power on race day!

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Actually that is illegal for triathletes to do and would incur a drafting penalty. Once you enter the draft zone you must complete your pass in 25 seconds. You cannot back out of the draft zone.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

I think both are useful. As opposed to training where I I use my powereter to make sure I hit my power targets on race day my coach tells me to use the power meter to make sure I do not go over my target. It is important to be able to sense if something is off for the day and then ride under your target power if that is what is required. Heart rate and rpe can tell you if you are working harder than normal to hold your power and might tell you it's time to back off. So all three working symbiotically work to produce a well-paced race.

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook

Only to those who mistakenly believe that heart rate is a better indicator of physiological strain than perceived exertion.

PPP: If it feels hard, it is hard.

So far neither response addresses my questions, except that you guys say using power in a race is useless, which I don't subscribe to.

It's not useless, it's the a bit of data that can be helpful.

My sense with many triathletes these days is they want all of this - the training, the racing the nutrition . . all of it, to be some easy mathematical equation - 2 + 2 = 4. Some of training, racing and the rest, work that way - but it's never that simple.


For veteran athletes who are confident in their abilities, there is a good case to be made for going with a move, taking a bit of a gamble and going away from the numbers. It's not exactly the same as the scenario on bike road racing, where you MUST forget everything and try and stay with the group, because your day/race is more or less done at that point if you get dropped from the group. However, as others have pointed out, there still are advantages when riding legally, and then there is also the psychological component as well there are positives with that.

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

Thanks for chiming in. OT, but I just have to ask; Where do we get the Slowtwitch branded kit, trucker hat and bottle?

Scott

"Only to those who mistakenly believe that heart rate is a better indicator of physiological strain than perceived exertion... If it feels hard, it is hard."

does that mean if it doesn't feel hard you're not going hard? because i think just about everyone reading this knows that if you ride based on how you feel, in a race that's 5 hours or longer especially, you will go too hard in the beginning. hence the need for a governor, and that governor is usually a power meter.

in the early days that governor was a HRM, and those who assiduously raced with that device got pretty good at relying on it (mark allen, pauli kiuru).

i'm not saying that HRMs are better than power meters, but with deference given to your education and expertise i wonder how many would agree with you that no device at all is better than a HRM.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

You're never without your perceived exertion, which factors in *all* physiological (and psychological) stressors, not just cardiovascular strain (the way HR does). Combine that with an objective measurement of the exercise intensity (i.e., power output), and you have all the information you need to make appropriate decisions.

The best TT I have ever ridden in my life happened last summer, at our state TT, when my Quarq died while warming up. No HRM, so I was forced to ride on PE. Fortunately I have a lot of old school experience doing that. I am pretty sure I would not have ridden that fast while using the PM to keep me from "over riding it". Still on the fence for whether or not to use in TT's this year

Well, if it is true that this guy hasn't ridden/raced on the road/outside in a long time, his perceived exertion 'calibration' likely will be way off...(speaking from my own experience only).

I'd use the PM if I were in his shoes... and would focus on my own effort and not on what other competitors are doing.

Hope he can be proud of his own effort.

He's absolutely right...with a few caveats.
Using a power meter racing or for that matter...any other device during racing is a detriment to your overall speed...
If you are using those devices during training...you should know "in your mind" the perceived efforts associated with the values of interest...and have them imprinted in your "supercomputer"..."your mind"
Using a powermeter racing means that " you don't understand your body"...You haven't done enough work to understand what you can and can't do.
Using a powermeter racing means that " you haven't done enough work to understand your body"...plain and simple.

Hogwash. How much training do you do totally tapered, with race-day adrenaline in your veins?

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Ed O'Malley
www.VeloVetta.com
Founder of VeloVetta Cycling Shoes
Instagram • Facebook