There are two primary pacing strategies I've heard of at HIM and IM distance, and I'm curious how others think about it/them. The first is to "flatten the course," which is to say, maintain as steady an output of power as is possible in order to minimize physiologic stress. The second is to "use power where it will help most," i.e., where most overall race time will be gained per watt expended.
Strategy #1 entails maintaining as steady a power output (bike) or effort (run) as possible no matter what the terrain in order to get through the distance with the minimum amount of stress to the body. The theory behind it is that glucose consumption, lactate generation, and muscle breakdown all increase geometrically with increasing effort. Given the same expenditure of effort, a steady effort is less taxing than a variable effort, which will allow one to finish stronger. An ideal bike leg pacing for this strategy would be to maintain as constant an output as possible, not going too hard up the hills, and trying to keep the wattage up on the downside of the hills in the name of constancy. In TraningPeaks terms, the goal would be to have the Normalized Power as close to the Average Power as possible, with a Variability Index (ratio of NP to AP) as close to 1.00 as possible.
Strategy #2 would involve using more power where it will make one faster, and less where it won't help as much. On the bike leg, this means pushing it a little harder on the uphill, a little less on the downhill, and generally saving leg strength for the run. Pedaling hard down a hill will not add much to speed per unit of power expended due to increased wind resistance, where pedaling hard up the hill at a slower speed will, and having enough leg strength to get through the run at full strength is certainly the best use for it.
Both make sense in their own ways, but it is not clear to me which is better, or at which distance, on which type of course, and perhaps even at what relative level of fitness. It doesn't make much sense to put any extra effort into biking up a hill if one doesn't have a surplus of fitness for the given distance, as it will just come out of your hide at the end of the run. Maybe there are more strategies I'm not aware of.
But the principles of minimizing the stress and accumulating it where it's best, seem to me to be in competition, and it's not clear to me under what conditions one ought to trump the other.
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Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
Strategy #1 entails maintaining as steady a power output (bike) or effort (run) as possible no matter what the terrain in order to get through the distance with the minimum amount of stress to the body. The theory behind it is that glucose consumption, lactate generation, and muscle breakdown all increase geometrically with increasing effort. Given the same expenditure of effort, a steady effort is less taxing than a variable effort, which will allow one to finish stronger. An ideal bike leg pacing for this strategy would be to maintain as constant an output as possible, not going too hard up the hills, and trying to keep the wattage up on the downside of the hills in the name of constancy. In TraningPeaks terms, the goal would be to have the Normalized Power as close to the Average Power as possible, with a Variability Index (ratio of NP to AP) as close to 1.00 as possible.
Strategy #2 would involve using more power where it will make one faster, and less where it won't help as much. On the bike leg, this means pushing it a little harder on the uphill, a little less on the downhill, and generally saving leg strength for the run. Pedaling hard down a hill will not add much to speed per unit of power expended due to increased wind resistance, where pedaling hard up the hill at a slower speed will, and having enough leg strength to get through the run at full strength is certainly the best use for it.
Both make sense in their own ways, but it is not clear to me which is better, or at which distance, on which type of course, and perhaps even at what relative level of fitness. It doesn't make much sense to put any extra effort into biking up a hill if one doesn't have a surplus of fitness for the given distance, as it will just come out of your hide at the end of the run. Maybe there are more strategies I'm not aware of.
But the principles of minimizing the stress and accumulating it where it's best, seem to me to be in competition, and it's not clear to me under what conditions one ought to trump the other.
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Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.