Power, hills, and burning matches

Although i don't train with power, i do with HR. I know that exppression is very popular with Gordo Bryne and Mark Allen when refering to effort on the bike. I used to think that any effoert above what I had trained would result in diminished bike or run perfromance, but I have moved away from that the more I have trained and raced. Certainly it's possible to push too hard climbing a hill during a race whcih could negatively impact your run, but I would think the duration or frequency of those efforts would have to be pretty high. Puishing extra power or HR up a a few short climbs during a race isn't going to destroy your run. I don't know if there's a magic number you can't cross, it's going to be very athlete specific.

Once you go above your FTP, the "cost" of that effort rises quickly.  How often and how long you can do so without having big effects "downstream" varies significantly.  The biggest consideration is the duration of your event.  For an IM, you would almost never want to have to be exceeding your FTP.  For an HIM, it should be very short if you do so (e.g., perahps looking to build some momentum to carry over a very short hill climb).  In an oly, you might get away with a few minutes above that level in order to maximize your speed up some hills.  It's always a cost/benefit analysis.  Is the cost of an extra effort here going to gain me more time on the bike than I will lose from it on the run?  But the cost & benefit are never completely clear so then it becomes a risk management game.  How much risk am I willing to take that this effort won't come back to bite me later?

You should go take a look at Endurance Nation.  There is some good info somewehre there about power "gears" for hill climbing.  Their advice is focused on HIM & IM racing but it might help you understand a little better.

I'd agree that there's no magical power/rep number that you need to watch out for. Normalized Power can help.

The Normalized Power calculation that WKO does is an attempt to state the cost of such efforts objectively. The whole idea is that intervals of high output take more of a physiological toll than a steady state effort at the same wattage.

Compare two hour-long rides: one steady state ride at 200 watts, the other done as 10' @ 300 watts, 10' @ 100 watts. The average power for both rides is going to be 200 watts. However, the second ride is going to leave me more fatigued. Normalized power for that ride is going to be something like 215 watts (just a guess, here). In other words, the second ride is going to leave me as fatigued as if I had ridden at a steady 215 watts for the whole hour.

That's the idea, anyway. I'm not going to claim that it will hold true for you, but at least it's a better way of gauging your hill climbing efforts than just relying on average power.

NP would be 253 (just pointing it out to show the impact of "matches" versus the 215 which is still pretty close)


Edited by FeltonR.Nubbinsworth 2010-03-02 12:45 PM

Others have covered it well.

Just think if you push extra 50 watts up a hill how much faster will you get to the top of the hill compared to having dropped gears and/or cadence and kept your power more steady up the hill? Not much yet you probably burned a match.

Many/most folks ride into a hill hammer hard if they had power meter their power spikes a lot at start of the hill and as the go up their power drops as they climb the hill so they have no ability to ride over the crest and pedal  so they are faster on the downhill. Which is faster and which has less of a cost?

Great way to see how you ride hills is look at your variability index? The higher the number above 1.0 the more you are giving away going up hills to hard in most cases. Probably doesn't matter as much in shorter races like a sprint or Olympic and is somewhat dependent I would suggest on strength as a runner.

I've seen race reports where folks have VI of 1.3 on a course with no big hills but only some rollers. I try to keep my VI under 1.05 if I can some hilly courses my goal is 1.09 or better and shorter the race more towards 1.0 if I race well. It takes some training to learn how to ride hills to keep power even which makes it power wise like a flat course. It also takes some ego swallowing as you go up hills quite slowly relative to others hammering up the hill.

For a lot of people they simply do not have right gearing on their bike for their ability ie FTP, their power/weight ratio and type of terrain in on the bike. So to get up the hill the spike their power up. 

To your question is riding hills just over 60 watts over your FTP a RPE of 7-8? I would think at that RPE you may want to be closer to your FTP.

 

I didn't bother running through the calculation for NP, but the actual number illustrates my point even better. Even though both rides had the same average power, the interval ride will feel like you rode for an hour straight at 253 watts. That's going to hurt your run a lot more than riding at 200 watts steady!

Now, there's definitely can be some value to being able to ride at a higher output at one point compared to another. For example, it's worthwhile riding a little harder into the wind and backing off a bit with the wind because it will make you faster overall. Or you may want to burn a match to try and psych out that AG competitor you're about to roll by.

Edited by dgunthert 2010-03-02 2:01 PM

Here is a short blog article by Friel on use of a variable pacing strategy that you might find has some relevant information:
http://www.trainingbible.com/joesblog/2008/03/more-on-pacing.html

OH, I am so guilty of this...  But I don't do it on hills -- I do it passing people.  I just cannot seem to gauge that effort correctly.  I guess it is helpful to see just how 'expensive' those passes can be.

Interesting studies. That's what my body wants me to do but I've been using the PT to keep my body in check on hills and keep under power levels in chapter 10 of Skiba.

Clearly +25% for minutes is definitely a match and in a small book at that. I think on my rolling hill rides I'll experiment with slightly harder ups and slightly easier downs to keep average power at "set" levels. The joy of training ahead of the event is having time to play with these things.