If you have a shortish hill to climb but it is damn steep? Let’s say you can go up it in your granny gear (whatever that might be) but it will push you past your LT for about 2 mins? OR you can drop down 3 gears or so and hammer it. you still are (obviously) topping your LT but for a shorter period of time, albeit perhaps significantly higher.
Which do you suppose is the better way to do it from a race perspective? OLY/IM make a difference? Don’t forget, you are absolutely going past your LT it is just a matter of how far past and for how long.
The higher you go over your LT the more it’s going to “cost” and the longer the recovery will be. Tactically it makes sense to push more watts climibing than on the flats in a race situation, but too much more could cost you time later in the race. So I guess the answer is between the two scenarios below. It would make a difference in Oly vs IM, as in IM you’d want to be more careful with higher intensities approaching Lt for too long which could mean slowing down significantly later in the race.
This is where pacing with a powermeter is really valuable.
In training, do it different every time for variety.
In a race, I have some “rules of thumb” for deciding to apply power at above-average levels (say my average for a 1/2IM is 210 watts). Basically, it comes down to deciding how much above your goal average you are willing to go for one little climb. Once you have that in your head, I think you just choose comfortable gearing. It shouldn’t be too high nor too low.
If the climb is only 30-60 seconds, I might go pretty darned hard, as long as I’m going to have 30-60 seconds of easy to follow the hard. 300+ watts, standing if needed. My gear choice will simply be whatever the hill requires to hold that power. Maybe stay in big ring.
But, the problem with this is that a spike in power like that requires a little recovery following. So, I might end up soft-pedaling a flat or coasting a short downhill in order to get my recovery. Why not just pedal up easier, and hold the effort after the climb? When doing this in races, I usually pass whoever passed me on the hill.
It usually doesn’t make sense to hammer the short hills and then coast the other side. It’s better to just hold steady and keep applying power over the top and accelerate strongly into the downhill.
Olympic distance…go hard unless there is no downhill recovery. If no recover, still raise your effort up a short hill. Ironman…you’d better stay much more to your average effort…even if it means slowing down to granny. You have to remember, sometimes the way to go fast is to NOT go slow…like in an Olympic distance. But, in an Irondistance, the way to go fast is to limit your walking…and if you burn too much fuel on the bike, you’ll walk. A lot.
