I need help figuring out my pace for Iron distance bike.
Currently my FTP is 231w and riding on the trainer yesterday @ 70%-75% was an eye opener that I could not sustain that power for the whole 112 miles.
How do I figure out my pace on race days? Race will be Challenge Atlantic city.
How many people have used bestbikesplit.com? Would like to hear your success/failure with the website.
P.S. Ive been looking around for a similar thread but couldnt find any. If you have any lead please post away.
I need help figuring out my pace for Iron distance bike.
Currently my FTP is 231w and riding on the trainer yesterday @ 70%-75% was an eye opener that I could not sustain that power for the whole 112 miles.
More information please.
How are you measuring power?
How are you estimating your FTP?
How long a ride did you do on the trainer to represent “the whole 112 miles”?
What was your nutritional regime during your race simulation trainer ride?
Try it outside, it will be a different story. Calculating down from FTP is a useful start point, but your indoor FTP probably won’t be your outdoor FTP. The best way to figure out your IM target power is to go do a century ride at what you think it should be, and see how you get on. When you get home, do you feel like you could run a marathon if you really had to? You can stretch this a little bit, as you will have the benefit of a taper in Atlanta, but really trying to figure out your target IM pace from indoor FTP is shaky ground.
But most importantly, did you really attempt to ride 112 miles on your trainer? Cor blimey.
How are you measuring power?
I am using a quarq with garmin 800 head unit
How are you estimating your FTP?
20minutes - 5% = FTP
How long a ride did you do on the trainer to represent “the whole 112 miles”?
Im just coming off from an off season of just raising my FTP. Yesterday was my first “test out your race pace kind of day”. I could not hold 162-171w 70%-75% power for 1hr straight. I had to take a couple minutes in every 20minutes
What was your nutritional regime during your race simulation trainer ride?
a gel @ 30minutes
Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you cannot hold 70% - 75% of your FTP for an hour then, by definition, that isn’t your FTP. In fact 70% of what you think is your FTP isn’t your FTP.
But what you’re saying sounds a bit wonky, if you can hold 243 watts for 20 minutes I am amazed that you can’t hold 161 - 173 watts for an hour. You might be an anaerobic beast, but more likely your Quarq hasn’t been properly zero’d either during the test, your hour ride, or both. Or you were really tired.
I’d rerun the FTP test but do it with a 5 min anaerobic burn out in the warmup. Lots of posts on here about doing that. Also make sure you zero the Quarq before the main interval. Then try your hour ride again.
But to your question, your FTP outdoor may be better than your FTP indoor. That doesn’t mean that you magically produce more power outdoor - although the cooling effect may add something - but rather you will implement a better FTP test outdoor, if you can find a suitable place to do it. I have held pretty close to my “indoor FTP” in an Oly race, then ran sub 40 10k, so for me the same power is easier to hold outside.
hmmm I think its more of like im lacking the endurance to hold the 70%. I dont know if that make sense. My last weeks intervals was 10minsx3 @ ftp and 1x15mins @ FTP and I was hitting them pretty well. 3-4weeks ago my FTP was 222w and all Ive been doing up until this week was mainly interval so maybe and hopefuly im just lacking the endurance part.
Well I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you cannot hold 70% - 75% of your FTP for an hour then, by definition, that isn’t your FTP. In fact 70% of what you think is your FTP isn’t your FTP.
^^This
Your FTP is, by definition, the maximum power you can hold for 1 hour. So if you are able to hold 70% of your perceived (or previously measured??) FTP, which it appears you weren’t able to but we’ll pretend you were, your FTP is, by definition, that number you held (70% of your perceived FTP).
I agree with other posters that there might be something up with your PM or maybe you just had a REALLY bad day but 70% of your measured FTP for 1 hour should really not feel hard at all.
I will also say, I feel like I read threads here a lot about people not believing their 20 minute FTP test number. Holding your maximum power output for 20 minutes will always be easier than holding your maximum power output for 60 minutes. A true FTP test is the 60 minute test…most just don’t want to put themselves through that agony. However, that will always be the best indicator of your FTP especially if you haven’t conquered the “mental” aspect of endurance sports or are generally built with more fast twitch muscle fibers.
Doing a 20’ test without the blowout 5’ before, and using 95% will overestimate FTP for many people.
Doing a 20’ test with the blowout will underestimate FTP for some people.
Now that you have a 20min test, do a 5’ test but really push it.
With the 5 and 20’ test use a CP calculator to get your CP.
It may shed some light on your anaerobic capability and possibly give you a better estimate of your FTP, which will remain an estimate that you will need to refine to figure out your race pace.
You figure out your pace on race day by doing 112 mile race simulation rides in training with a short run after.
It is important those training rides be race simulations. No stopping for coffee, minimal stoplight route, similar terrain if you can manage it. Race food race drink.
I need help figuring out my pace for Iron distance bike.
Currently my FTP is 231w and riding on the trainer yesterday @ 70%-75% was an eye opener that I could not sustain that power for the whole 112 miles.
How do I figure out my pace on race days? Race will be Challenge Atlantic city.
How many people have used bestbikesplit.com? Would like to hear your success/failure with the website.
P.S. Ive been looking around for a similar thread but couldnt find any. If you have any lead please post away.
Pacing using threshold power is a funny thing. On paper, you could do nothing but 60-90 minute high intensity rides, still getting in 12-14 hours on the bike per week, have a solid FTP then magically knock out a 5 hour IM ride at 70%. It’s not going to happen. I’d love to see someone that can pull that off and still run well off the bike.
Part of the problem is that in a 20 minute test, you’re operating partly using anaerobic systems. For 60 minutes, your using almost all aerobic systems but on the edge of exceeding equilibrium on anaerobic. If you are having issues hitting your power targets going from 20’ to 60’ to 90…120… 5 hours, then IMO you’re lacking aerobic base and a certain amount of specifity.
Also, in that 60 minute effort, how di you pace it? Did you go out right on the money? or were you going a little too hard? 70-75%, with a low VI, on fresh legs should feel easy, really, really easy and with any kind of base, it won’t get hard at all until at least 2-3 hours later.
You really find out the true value in a power meter in these windy early spring outdoor rides. I’ll tell you that much. Very easy to blow up going out into a wind combined with hills.