Ok. . . yesterday I did my weekly 2 x 20min intervals at 255 and 256 avg Watts respectively. I have steadily increased my efforts over the spring. Initially I began very conservatively, as I was still recovering from last year’s accident. Now, I am doing these at nearly maximum sustainable effort that allows me to complete the workout (I would guess that next week’s workout, in targetting 260 Watts, will be right at the limit).
My question is this. . .for those aquainted with training for power. . .what will this translate to for race power over 20k in a sprint tri or 40k in an Oly. I have these races coming up in June. Last year my 30min max effort was 280 just prior to the same races (although I wasn’t able to do the Oly due to the accident). I raced the sprint holding 240, but the day was so windy that it was hard to maintain a steady effort. Even though I ended up with a top 15 bike split I felt like I left some legs on the bike course since I ended up running in the 17s for the 5k (with a long finishing straight into a 30+ knot wind) running steady but not 100%. I would guess I could have targeted 260 at that race and still run the same effort. The other variable is that I was training for 1/2 and IM distance last year and had not been doing much level 4 and up effort (2x20s, 6x5s etc).
I can find all sorts of references to straight TT effort targets based on workouts. . .but not much on multisport. . .
I’m guessing I would ride 270 over a 30min TT right now. What should I target in the race?
I train with powertap, but have never actually seen my race power since I use a disc. I usually test CP30 in training. I’ll then do CP30 workouts when I’m training for sprint races, or CP60 intervals (4x10 or 2x20) when I’m training for olympic distance. I estimate CP60 by subtracting 5% from CP30. I can’t make myself suffer for a full CP60 test unless I could measure power in a 40k TT race.
Still, I’m sure if I tested my power in sprint or olympic distance races, it would be below CP30 and CP60. Since I start the bike so exhausted from the swim, and hold back on the bike because of the run, I’m sure my olympic distance power is maybe 5% below CP60. I’d estimate my sprint tri power close to my CP60. But again, I’ve never measured. I’d be very curious to know what other’s have seen how training power relates to triathlon racing power.
So if I read you right, at an estimate 270 CP30, I would ride about 240 for the Oly and 255 for the Sprint, or in other words, ride the sprint at the same effort I rode yesterday.
These are B and C races for me this year so I have no problem riding my PT Pro/CXP-33 wheel for them, combined with either my Alps or H3 front. I’m having the Alps rear rebuilt around a second PT Pro hub, but it likely won’t be done in time for either June race.
Here’s my experience so far this year, you can draw your own parallels. I have a PT with wheel cover, so I do all my training and racing with it.
I raced a 7mi flat TT (17:09) and a 6mi rolling TT (14:22) early in April, averaging ~293 and 308W, respectively. I think that now my 20min power is about 300W.
I’ve also raced two duathlons (5K/28K/5K and 3mi/16mi/3mi), where I averaged about 252W over the 46min and 42min bikes. The latter race was a nasty headwind (and rain) coming back (I went out in ~17min, and back in ~25), and I pushed pretty hard. I had a lousy second run at the first race, and an excellent second run at the second (go figure). It seems like I can put out ~90% of my FT power in a sprint duathlon.
Over the past three days, I did a 33mi solo TT (22.7mph) on a rolling course with lots of red lights (my power graph looks like an EKG with so many dips and spikes), and averaged 276W, and a 20mi hilly TT (20.4mph) averaging about 260 (but the normalized power was over 290W). For my district TT (40K) this weekend, I’m going to stretch for about 290W; I may not make it.
I’d think I could do about 270W for a sprint triathlon, and perhaps 260W for an Olympic.
Your weight, aerodynamics, and hill profile are such a big factor that there is no way to predict what your speed will be. Whenever I compare power numbers with someone, I find my 190 lbs putting my average speed well behind those who are smaller with similar power. The affect is less on a flat course but still significant.
But, to give you some idea, I rode about 1:12 in a 40K a couple weeks ago and averaged 260W for that. It was a rolling profile with a number of corners that required slowing. For the same power I would guess a 165lb person would be around 1:07 or so. To finish with a 260W average I had to be working in the 280 range most of the time, my CP30 is probably just over 300 but I haven’t tested in a while.
The nice thing about power training is you don’t need to worry about your time…try to hit your power goal and be happy with whatever time that yeilds.
If you are using your 2x 20 as benchmarks, then stay with that benchmark. Don’t try to figure out what your P(30) or P(60) is. You know your P(2x20), and you know how it feels to do those. Don’t reinvent the wheel.
I would personally race a 20k tri bike leg at P(2x20) plus 5-8 watts. You’re going to be off the bike in 30 minutes, with plenty of endurance left for a quick run. I’ve done a 20k TT and held 9 watts more than my best set of 2x20s. I didn’t run afterwards, but I certainly felt like I could have done a hard 5k. A 30-minute bike leg warrants a tongue-dragging, slobbering effort on the bike.
I would approach a 40k tri bike at maybe P(2x20) minus 10-15 watts. The bike is longer, and the run is longer, so I think we should take more of a “haircut” off max power. Experienced cyclists that do 2x20s regularly usually find that they can hold a little more power on the intervals than they can in a real-live 40k TT.
Obviously speed will be dependent on the course profile and wind conditions, but yesterdays 255 and 256 W 20 min efforts were avg speed 24.1, and 23.9 mph, with a significant coasting period during the second interval waiting for an aircraft to clear the flightline. Its dead flat here at the Norfolk Naval Station where I do most of my weekday training. Wind can be a factor out by the flightline, but not yesterday. Most of the tidewater area races have pan flat profiles. Wind is the only real issue.
Agreed on the power training and racing. At the same sprint race thats coming up last year the wind was horrible, 30 knots gusting to 45 and 50. The waves were so bad on the swim that they cancelled the swim portion for the Senior Olympics athletes. 1/2 of the bike course was unprotected along the water, making for some slow times. I just pegged my target wattage as near as I could and didn’t pay attention to the speed. The other 24-25mph guys without power meters were blowing themselves to oblivion trying to reach their target speed.
Either way I estimate, based on feedback here I should ride somewhere between 255 and 265 based on recent workouts. That makes more sense and is significantly harder than the 240 I rode at last year having just tested CP 30 the week before at 280. But again, I wasn’t doing 2x20s or any other hard work so I didn’t really have a feel for hard, short TT efforts. That’s also just about what I was guessing I should ride before posting here, but I wanted to make sure I wasn’t crazy.
Kind of unrelated, but I’m getting very frustrated with my results, now that I can see the power data. (re: previous post, I have a pt hub in Hed alps wheel, terrific setup!).
Anyway, Sunday I had a rough 2 hr ride on rolling country roads with few stops, and my Pave. was 199 while Pnorm was almost 240. (very typical numbers for me) The numbers are obviously lower than y’all, but my point is, despite how hard I try to keep it constant, my power is all over the place. I’m not sure how much speed difference that example would have netted me if my Pnorm was actually my Pave, but I’m sure it would be significant.
Does anybody else have this problem? What can you do about it? I can get a “feel” for the torque my legs are exerting at a given power, but then my cadence changes slightly, and everything is different.
Anyway, Sunday I had a rough 2 hr ride on rolling country roads with few stops, and my Pave. was 199 while Pnorm was almost 240. (very typical numbers for me) The numbers are obviously lower than y’all, but my point is, despite how hard I try to keep it constant, my power is all over the place. I’m not sure how much speed difference that example would have netted me if my Pnorm was actually my Pave, but I’m sure it would be significant.
Does anybody else have this problem? What can you do about it? I can get a “feel” for the torque my legs are exerting at a given power, but then my cadence changes slightly, and everything is different.
Don’t sweat the difference between Pavg and Pnorm. Pnorm tells you what kind of workout you just did (you rode two hours “variably” as if you rode two hours “steady” at 240 watts). It was a 240 watt workout. The “variability index” of 240/199 = 1.21 is on the high side for a “fartlek” ride (which you might target at 1.10 to 1.20), but just reflects the reality of your route. Nothing wrong with that.
If 240 watts is around 90% of your threshold power, then you’re doing what some wags have called “The Perfect Workout” – two hours with an NP at 90% of threshold; VI equal to 1.15 to 1.20. That right there is my default workout on the bike. If I’ve got time for only one bike ride in a week, I do that one.
If you work the hills hard, and lollygag the rest of it, the VI will rise above 1.20 (as Pavg falls), and you know you didn’t work hard enough overall. I rode two hours with some roadie buddies two weeks ago, during which they stomped all the hills and soft-pedalled everywhere else. I was dissatisfied with the workout, and the numbers were Pnorm 220, Pavg 160, for a VI = 1.38. Too much goofing off on the flats, and the workout sucked.
Finally – 240 normalized watts on a 2-hour ride is a damned fine amount of power output. Be proud!
One thing about racing with Power and sprints…I don’t think I’d target a power range like I would for a longer distance event. You’ll be racing right at threshhold or slightly higher so your body will set the ‘target power’.
260 watts can span a pretty large speed range depending on your aerodynamics, your weight and the specifics of the bike course.
I’m curious to do a couple sprints and olys now that I have a powertap…it will be interesting to compare ‘race’ wattage to the wattage of a hard training session.
Hmmm. . .I’m not sure I understand your argument against targeting a Pavg based on known capabilities, even for shorter races.
Understand that riding at, say, 260 does not mean I will peg the meter there and keep it there. In shorter races I am more apt to punch the accelerator a bit on short hills. A 350-400 watt spike over a short hill won’t kill you in a 20k like it might over 56 or 112 miles. I am also far less likely to pay attention to HR vs P early in the bike on a short race. My HR is always through the roof after the swim, no matter how hard or easy I start the bike leg.
But if I’ve determined through tests or workouts that I can hold 260 for the distance. . .I am not suddenly going to be able to ride at 300 into a stiff headwind just because its race day and I want to maintain my usual average speed. I’ll blow for sure. Speed is a by-product for me now that I have power data. Its far better just riding at a power I know I can maintain over the distance and let the speed fall where it may than to try and guess what speed I might be able to hold given the conditions. As I said in an earlier post, I watched guys who I normally am racing blow up in a short 20k bike leg last year because they were racing their speedometers. I rode a wattage and didn’t worry about the speed. They passed me in the first mile, but by the 1/2 way point they were sitting up huffing and puffing and I passed them with ease. But even if the conditions had been favorable, I’m fairly certain we would have found ourselves racing as usual back and forth and letting our running legs do the deciding.
That said, I don’t let myself be a total slave to the powermeter. You’ve got to pay attention to the race as well. There is still a huge performance variable in the motivations gained racing those around you.
Darn you guys and your CyclingPeaks software! Having a Mac laptop, my investment to get that software up and running is slightly more $$ so I’m not fully invested in the Pnorm concept yet. Hand calcs just take too much of my day to bother with.
Oh, and andy497. . .199/240 seems like a decent 2 hr ride to me. We’re discussing power for much shorter efforts. My weekend ride of 2.5 hours this weekend was 1/2 hour @185 avg, 1 1/2 hours at 210, and 1/2 hour at 185 (slowly letting the effort reduce over the last 10 minutes for cooldown). I think the workout average came out to 201. No idea what normalized power was, though. It was a fairly tough workout for me, however, given that I don’t have the huge base I had last year due to an accident.
As you know, much experience training and racing with power. A few notes: CP30 now is about 300. Just guessing, really. I’ve done two 2 x 20’ sessions in the last two weeks, at 285-290 watts for all repeats. I’m dealing with some specificity issues, after a year away from this kind of training. I raced a sprint on April 25, 15m bike leg. I averaged 265 or 267. Don’t remember exactly. When I get home to the desktop I’ll post the normalized watts. I feel the dynamics of the bike leg of a tri make it almost impossible to compare these numbers to CP values, as determined by a stand alone TT. Think how crappy you feel out of the water. Hell, I felt like I was finally riding the bike about 10 minutes before I had to get off. Want to know what watts to hold in a race? Race with it. For longer races do a very, very high quality race rehearsal.
How to race with watts: read my article on xtri.com. Use testing to identify LT watts Use training to identify the “right” watts for you, given terrain or tactical situations. For example, I have numbers in my head for Rich in a headwind, Rich on hill x at cadence y, Rich on a long flat in the second half of an IM, etc. No formulas, just lots of time in the saddle staring at the meter.
For the sprint I did it was a little different. It’s a hilly, rolling course and I hammered the bike. On flat sections where I could settle in a bit I made myself see 280-290+. The course includes a long grade at about 2-3% ending in a short, 8% pitch. I grinded out at 280+ on the long grade and just hammered the 8% part. I then stared at the meter to hold 280 over the crest and into the downhill. In the end, the watts were what they were. Racing the same course on Sunday but for about 22 miles. I’ll have that 265 average in my head, to refine my pacing a bit, but not much.
FWIW – Based on what I’ve read on his site, I think Rich has a very good handle on racing with power. The main message – learn your own in-and-outs by doing race rehearsals and B races. Formulas only give you ranges, but real life lets you dial it in.
One small point though – a thing I like about the power meter is that it takes “how I feel after the swim” out of the equation. I launch the bike at a target wattage (a little below what I expect to average). If I feel crappy after swimming (or running in a du), I just go to the target wattage anyway. My “feeling” invariably comes around to match the power effort after 10-15 minutes.
Yes, the greatest advantage is that you know exactly how hard you’re working, relative to your capabilities, while your competition does not. This is particularly valuable in high risk situations such as hills, headwinds, the first 30 min out of the water, etc. For IM, I just dial in the wattage I want to see for the first 30 min of the bike. Even though HR and PE are all over the place, I know that if I ride at watts X I’ll be Ok. But for a sprint you need to just let the dog run, look at the average later.
That is my thought with sprints and maybe olys as well - “let the dog run”.
CP30 is around 310. I haven’t done a CP60 but harder efforts indicate that it is 5-8% less than CP30. Not sure what LT is. Average watts at IM pace (AeT or pick your poison) seem to be around 210w (231w average at Ralph’s 1/2) - which seems to translate to about 230watts whenever there is a long section for steady pedaling. For my first IM I’ll err on the conservative side - especially the first loop per Rich’s tips.
I agree with the other posters in that for longer races you need to race watts and the speed will fall wherever it may. I barely paid any attention to my speed while racing Ralph’s.
Wow. Pretty cool to have an objective number. I averaged 233 and split 2:28-29, weight 163-164 on race day, so about 30 pounds lighter than you. However, last year I averaged 236, raced a touch lighter, and split 2:32. Crazy windy last year.
