Let’s say your optimal race pace for a certain FLAT distance is 250 watts at 85 rpm cadence.
Now throw a long, medium grade hill in there. Wouldn’t you still want to climb it at the same power and cadence? So simply downshift and keep up the same effort?
Maybe raise up and put your hands on the hoods if you slow enough that wind is not a factor (helping with power and breathing) but otherwise keep all but the gearing the same?
I am pretty sure that this topic is WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYY out of line in the off season. Cant you see that we are talking about sex, hot chicks and guns right now?
Probably not. In this case I’d likely borrow some power and climb at 275-300w, and then pay back that loan by descending at ~100w.
Agree with Aztec. Or rather, that is what happens to me. Lower cadence and higher watts. Recover on downhill (although often get passed). Since this is what happens to me I would say it is probably better to maintain high cadence and attempt to maintain watts at a constant effort.
You can’t pay back that loan b/c you spend so little time going down and so much time going up.
To the original post, yes you should hold the same power and cadence as much as possible throughout the entire race. I do not know of any reputable coach posting on the Internet that tells you to spike power going over hills in a long triathlon.
What power to maintain and at what cadence when the hill is too steep to maintain your normal cadence - that’s a tougher question.
To make this post worthy of the forum, I’m going to see if I can get a picture of my hairy butt to go with this post … check back soon
Agree.
Keep the wattage line on the graph as level as possible throughout the race and you will have a much better run. Spiking on a hill is great in a road race if you want to attack the peleton, but no such dynamics in a tri. You’ll burn too much glycogen, and that is a loan that is very hard to repay later on in the race.
I generally maintain the same cadence, but sacrifice some speed to save myself for later in the ride.
Of course, I am a terrible sandbagger and I always have juice left after every race. I fear the bonk.
"In this case I’d likely borrow some power and climb at 275-300w, and then pay back that loan by descending at ~100w. "
The power range is probably too large but the concept is correct. This has been worked out, for example at http://www.biketechreview.com/power/supercomputers.htm
“but the concept is correct.”
faster, yes, but it doesn’t take into account that triathletes run, rather than collapse, after getting off the bike : )
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“faster, yes, but it doesn’t take into account that triathletes run, rather than collapse, after getting off the bike”
But seriously, if the racer decides on a certain effort on the bike to allow the best possible run, wouldn’t normalized power be the metric to quantify that effort? What other “costs” would there be that are not included in the metabolic load of normalized power? In other words, while the normalized power chosen for the bike leg might not be the highest value possible for the rider, wouldn’t optimal pacing be determined by minimizing time for a value of normalized power chosen in light of the upcoming run?
I would think that a straight line wattage reading is optimal in zero wind conditions but in real life a small power increase would probably pay off to take advantage of the lower wind resistance going up the hill.
I’m not well versed in power wattage vernacular, and I don’t fully understand what you meant (but it sounds interesting if you’d care to dumb it down for me, seriously).
Basically, I think that the general thinking with measuring power output during a race is that you should avoid spikes, as they will hurt your run. Best case scenario would have you pushing 250w up AND down the hill.
The natural rhythm of energy is not static, and as such I wouldn’t think it optimal mentally or physiologically to hold an exact wattage the entire race. However, I’m speaking of that what I do not truly know. I’ll be picking up my new powertap-pro this weekend,…finally!
“Best case scenario would have you pushing 250w up AND down the hill”
Sounds easy enough. I wonder what your gearing would have to be to maintain 250 watts at, say, 90 cadence going down a 6% grade…
True, that’s why I prefaced it with “Best case scenario”
Would be an interesting calculation, though…
True. But you should be “pricing in” the fact that you will have spikes in power at some point if it’s not a flat course. And that may mean going a little slower on the flats to allow more power use on the climbs.
And it need not be as dramatic as I used. Maybe it’s 250w on the flat (knowing I could do 275w if pressed) and then climb at 290w if it’s a short rise, and 270w if it’s longish, and if it’s super long… then 250w or so.
The point about power spikes being a problem… true, depending on how large those spikes are. If you can do the event at 250w, then a couple of shots at 300w won’t hurt. If those spikes are to 600w, then that MAY be a different story, unless said spikes are a long time before the run.
I disagree about downhill not being enough time to pay it back. Adjust your borrowing such that you aren’t overwithdrawn! Even a minute or two should start to be a big repayment.
Good points. I think the distance is also worth mentioning here. Significant (and even moderate) spikes become more harmful the longer you’re sitting on the bike (or running). I can’t imagine a few 600w spikes during a sprint distance race would make much difference, but those same big spikes would probably hurt your times much more during a long course event.
Sort of depends on the situation.
Lets say you are time trialing a shorter race, and it is a short shallow hill. I’d bump up my wattage slightly (maybe 10-15W) on the uphill side and drop it slightly on the downhill side. No sense pushing hard into the wind at 30+mph, but at 15mph you get more benefit from a little harder work.
If it’s a longer hill, then I’d just keep my power constant.
Now let’s say you are riding an ironman. You just got by a big group and it was a pain in the ass because the road is crowded and your trying to stay draft legal and work your way through without spiking your power. I guarantee you that unless you weigh 120 lbs, if you try to keep your power constant up the hill, every one of them is going to go past you and then get in your way on the downhill. In this case you’ve got to decide which is worse. Most of the time I just let them pass me and I try to get them back on the down, but it gets irritating seeing the same butts go by over and over again. Well, there are some butts that are okay (getting this back on topic).
It depends on the length of the hill and the length of the race.
For a short hill, you can afford to go above threshold for a brief period and then recover on the descent. However, you cannot do this for a longer hill, as you will be above threshold for too long. After you have trained and raced with power for a while, you will get a feel for how much to vary your power output during a TT in response to terrain.
The earlier posters are correct in saying that the most glycogen-efficient way of TTing is to hold power steady. However, the most time-efficient (i.e. fastest) way of TTing is to increase power when climbing or working into the wind (you can model all of this stuff at analyticcycling.com if you really want to get into it). The longer the race, the more you would be inclined to adopt the glycogen-efficient strategy of steady power.
So, like all good answers, it depends…