What’s a good watts per kilo average for a top age group Ironman? I know this might be too general of a questions since there could be many variables but any ballpark data?
anything between 3,5 and 3,75 (cycling specialists) W/kg.
You phrased your question incorrectly to get maximum ST response.
To get maximum response - you need to tell YOUR watts/kilo…then you get a flood of people
telling you that you’re pathetic and doing it all wrong. They still won’t tell you their own numbers…but
at least you get a lot of responses 
FWIW I have ridden at about 2.5 W/k in two races - and both times had a top 20% finish in 40-45. To place
higher, I guess you need more…
.
I was 5th AG off the bike at NZ with 2.7w/kg. It’s not the only measure to consider.
Plus if I give my w/kg i’ll find out that my seats too high, that i’m doing too much and/or too little weight lifting and that my data is a result of consuming too much or not enough dairy:).
W/CdA is a better ratio to study for triathlon…
this is what I was thinking.
does anyone have any numbers for W/cdA?
W/CdA is a better measure as far as I know certainly for a flat/ish course.
Having said that I have no idea what my CdA is and have no idea what to compare it to.
For what it is worth my goal watts for IM south Africa in two weeks time is 210 and I weigh 70kg so that is 3,0 Watts/kg.
(top 3 bike time in my age group 45-49 last time out and fastest run time in my age group but that was before I trained/raced with power)
Hope that helps…
Like watts/kg at IM pace? Or maximum output? Last time measured I had my aerobic threshold at 240w weighing in at 68 kg…so THEORETICALLY I should make 3,5 w/kg…
5h11 bike split in IMNZ with 2.8W per kilo. I weigh 67kg. My IM threshold is 3.35W/kg, but there’s a bit more to IM bike racing than watts per kilo
if you really want a fast bike split, swim faster, you’ll come out with faster riders, and you’ll do a lot less work on the bike because you will just sit 7m behind the guy in front and do nothing but sit there. Which is why I never bothered using all the power at my disposal, because the return wasnt worth the effort. I would have had a marginally faster bike split, but would have had to do a lot more work. When this becomes really useful is if you;re using all the power at your disposal but sitting in the pace line and not moving.
Rule of thumb, swim faster, rider smarter, run better
yeah it’s easy to roll with the huge 5hrs pack. but if you want to finish up front, you’ll have to do more than that. i mean, 2.8 W? that’s like… recovery or base training? i do my base training at 3W/kg, i’m certain the top age groupers ride much harder than 2.8W.
but it’s true what you say about riding and swimming
IMAZ Last November: 2.67W/KG for a 4h56
Not exactly top AG, but not a long way off.
Really? The guy that won my age group 30-34 rode 5h12, no one rode sub 5hrs, and 30-34 isn’t exactly a slow age group.
Personally, i’d rather be as efficient as i possibly can be on the bike, I wouldn’t worry about absolute numbers.
winner of 20-24 rode 5.08 with 2.8w/kg. That is without the benefit of a pack as no one caught him for 100km after leading out of the swim.
Take 15-20mins off NZ bike times to compare to a course with smooth roads.
w/kg is not a measure that means a lot for most IMs unless you are smart enough to turn it into good w/cda
well then maybe the bike course wasnt very fast. i’m certain tim beardall f.e. rode harder than 3W/kg to finish 6th overall at IM malaysia with a bike split of about 4:30. i went ~4:55 in kona twice and 4:41 at IM Austria (20 min slower than Marino Van Hoenacker) with about 225-230 W, that is a little less than 3.6 W/kg. Talking to some of the other top AGers (8:45-8:55) here Austria they all have similar power numbers
i just can’t believe i could average 38-39 km/h with 180 W, if i were to ride 2.8 W. and i’d describe my setup as pretty aero. but anyway, that’s probably all mental masturbation. boards don’t hit back. and wattage numbers don’t win you races.
W/CdA is a better ratio to study for triathlon…
Considering nobody knows their CdA and the fact that there’s a correlation between CdA and mass then I’d say W/kg is fine.
To generalize, you’d probably see a lot of top AGers (top 10 in their AG) be around 3.0 W/kg. More specifically, that would mean an NP (normalized power) of 200w for someone who weighs 65kg and has an FTP of 270w.
Thanks, Chris
Interesting you say this, I have an FTP of 300, can hold 225W for 5 hours, but there’s a bit more to it than that. The roads in NZ aren’t what you’d call smooth, and the wind can be a really big factor in the race, so really you should focus on the least amount of effort for the outcome you want.
Sitting on the front of the pace line would have had me using 215W, but sitting the requisite 7m back, directly behind the rider in front was less effort for the same outcome. All of a sudden you’ve gone from 3.38W/kg to 2.88W/kg with no change to the bike split, but more energy expended. This is one of the good things about racing with power. It would make a lot more difference if you’re coming out of the swim in a bad position, because then you have to crank it up a bit because the paceline you’re in is moving too slowly.
Anyway back to the original poster, you can be competitive in quite tough age groups with less than 3W per kilo, if you can do more than 3W per kilo, it’s not neccessary to use it because you can expend more energy for no material change in outcome
One other point about IMNZ, is they have 16 bikes for the lead age groupers, 2 bikes for the pro women and 2 for the pro men, with lead TO in the tv helicopter. They pride themselves on having the toughest technical officals ont he IM circuit, this is probably another reason why the bike times don’t appear all that fast. Bad roads, no drafting, and a bit of wind and rain. Pro women and pro men, went off 15mins before the AGs
I think it’s important to just generalize in this case and leave it at that. We can discuss or debate race tactics endlessly with no real constructive outcome, imho.
Thanks, Chris
Also, one other thing, 3W per kilo on an SRM is not neccessarily 3W per kilo on a powertap, etc, etc.
Mine is using a powertap was 2.88W/kg, I expect an SRm would be 10W or so higher, thus making be > 3W/kg
Maybe people should just focus on the race rather than the numbers 
Also, one other thing, 3W per kilo on an SRM is not neccessarily 3W per kilo on a powertap, etc, etc.
Mine is using a powertap was 2.88W/kg, I expect an SRm would be 10W or so higher, thus making be > 3W/kg
Maybe people should just focus on the race rather than the numbers
Yes, I certainly agree on all points above. You could also argue that normalized watts would be more important than average watts or possibly vice versa. Either way, the OP was pretty clear that he was just interested in a ballpark number. I think we accomplished that task.
Thanks, Chris