VI and the IM Wisconsin course
I’m writing this because the IM WI camp is coming up, and it’s something I have thought about since the last time I raced WI back in 2011. Hope it is helpful to those of you who are going out to practice on the WI course.
EN teaches that no matter what the course, we “flatten” it. If you ride with power (as you should if you can afford to!), you ride with only slightly elevated power going up hill (10-20% over target, depending on how long the hill is), and you maintain power over the crest and until you spin out going downhill.
In theory if you do this, you will ride very, very evenly, and your Normalized Power (NP) will be very close to your Average Power (AP). You will have a Variability Index (VI = NP/AP) very close to 1.00.
We often state that you should aim for VI of 1.01-1.02.
I write this to let some of us mere mortals know that this will be hard on the IM WI course. It’s not a mountain, but as everyone probably knows, there is a lot of up and down.
If you have a very high FTP relative to your weight (e.g., >4 W/kg…let’s call you Rich), you will be riding with a target power of 70-75%, which we’ll call 3 W/kg. If you’re an average sized triathlete (70 kg, 154 lbs), that’s about 210 W. With proper gearing, you’ll be able to go up all the hills at IM WI in the 210-240 W range without straining. (I weigh just a little less than this and have ridden the course many times, so I know these numbers are reasonable.)
If you have a more mortal FTP relative to your weight (e.g., 3 W/kg…let’s call you William), your FTP itself is in the range of 210-220 W. Since you still weigh the same as the stronger rider above, you’ll still have to ride up those same short hills at about the same power…but YOU WOULD BE RIDING AT YOUR FTP, not at your target watts, which might be more like 150-160 W.
So this is the rub. You can level the course, but you can’t make it flat. At some point, a lot of us have to ride harder than we want to just to make it up the hill. You still should do it smart (in a low gear and relatively high cadence), but you just have to do the best you can!
There is a second place where Rich has an advantage over William. Rich can afford to power down the hills at power until >40 mph, because he hasn’t been exceeding his target going up. William would be wise to ride at power at the crest and at the beginning of the downhill, but begin soft pedaling at more like 32-35 mph in order to recover some from his hill effort.
The result of this is that Rich and his high W/kg will have to ride with a VI of 1.00-1.02 in order to claim that he rode his bike leg “smart”, whereas William will not have any choice but to have more variable power, and probably would ride with a VI around 1.04 and still call it “smart”. The higher your FTP/mass ratio, the lower the VI can be on this course.
Don’t use this as an excuse, though. VI values of 1.07-1.10 are VERY high. It’s not really a linear scale. Keep it as low as you can. But if you are an “average” cyclist, just realize that your VI at Wisconsin will be higher than it would be at Florida or should be at Arizona, and be comfortable with that.
As always, I hope this stimulates some discussion!
Comments
William - fantastic post and can't agree more. I have an FTP of 200 and I find trying to keep my watts below 220 on the three large hills to be extremely challenging while still staying on the bike (walking up the hill next to your bike without a mechanical issue is not really an option).
So my goal for the upcoming camp is to really focus on how low I can take my cadence to limit the spike in watts - something practice will hopefully help as I look to do IMWI for the second time in 2013.
WJ,
Another great post, you're on a roll today!
At IMWI'11 I was at 305w FTP, raced at ~157lb so about 4.2-4.3w/kg. Pnorm for the race was, I think, about 212-215w so 3.0w/kg. VI was 1.02-1.025, as was Matt Ancona's. I ran a compact front and 26-11 rear, for a 5:07-12 bike split. The course was 1.5 miles long that year so I think I earned the damn 5:07
.
Which is all to say that if you're south of those numbers you should really consider bringing more gears to the race, as they can really help. Oh, and a K-Edge chain catcher so you don't drop your chain at the bottom of Timberlane
.
Finally, I think everyone underestimates just show slowly you can ride up a hill on a bike and not fall over
. I was reminded of this on Sonora Pass a couple weeks ago, 10-11 miles at 5-26% at 7-9.5k altitude. I had fun, in a twisted way, seeing how slowly I could climb up some of the pitches without falling over or doing the Paperboy. That is, if you bring enough gears to the race and don't get tempted to crush the watts when your speed drops below 5mph on a hill, I bet you would spike a lot less frequently than you otherwise would.
@Brian it is NOT about riding at the lowest cadence that you can. Low cadence + high watts + IM bike leg = a bad IM run. Rather, use the camp to identify where your lowest cadences are on the course, given your current gearing, and considering making an adjustment if one is needed.
My 2011 WI ride was VI 1.04. Pretty sure my FTP was in the 230 W range, so around 3.5 w/kG. I did 5:45 on a target watts of around 170. I rode 50/34 and 11/26...same as Rich.
@Rich -- completely agree and probably should have clarified what I intended to practice in preparation for IMWI .
Will be running a Compact w/ 11-28. At some point in the 34/28 combo - candence has to slow in order to keep watts down on the hills. What I found last go round is it that it takes a lot of balance and focus to ride in a low cadence at 34/28 in order to avoid a spike in watts.
I want to practice, in a more diligent manner, is keeping my watts low (which requires a low cadence on the hills) and still stay perpendicular to the road - I don't intend to practice this low cadence riding (34/28) anywhere except for the three hills we hit twice on the loop and Whalen on the stick -- rest of the way stay in a gear that that I can maintain 85+ cadence
Let me know if I have missed something in my interpretation of how to ride with power.
Thanks for pointing this out.
1. I've been working on figuring this type of thing out for the whole season because of IMMoo, and
2. I have yet to figure this thing out!
Ok, I've digested this long enough, I'm gonna ramble a bit on this topic. Anyone and everyone in the house has probably notice that many of my topics in the forums have been questions about improving VI in my training for Wisc. Ad nauseum. Other than training consistently, this is my focus for the whole year. I'm still looking for a decent run at an IM, and I've chosen a huge stick of dynamite to try to get my best run. Goal Watts and VI, that's my focus.
I've never been to the Madison area, won't be able to attend any rallies. Have asked a lot of questions and done a lot of research. And, based on what I've come up with, the terrains are 'pretty close'. Though, I think my area is a bit more like picturing turbulent boiling water whereas Madison (again, based on what I've been told from all resources available) is a lot smoother, longer steadier stuff.
My concern for the run is huge. Because, running after my harder/longer bikes is character building. It has really forced me to pay attention to my spikes on the bike. The spikes that you speak of.
Today's ride had 6x 25' (5') at 80% built into a 4.5' ride. Goal watts, 80%, 210. Real world application, shoot for steady pressure over the crest and on the downs, could be 135, could be 175, and on the ups... I just try to cap it at 220-225. BUT, you are SO right about how ez it is to have that 220 slide quickly up to 275, 250,260,245, etc. They don't look menacing, but they sure do add up. It's amazing that YOU DO NOT HAVE TO SPEND LONG DURATIONS OVER GOAL WATTS TO GET COOKED. Even Coggan's book mentions this. They really do add up and have such a larger physiological cost. I'm better at managing this than I was 6 months ago, but I'm nowhere near Ninja mode for the race. My VI's are nuts cuz the downs really screw with the good stretches of held pacing.
The only thing that I'm finding that works consistently is to really connect RPE with the watts. This saves the hammering on the downs and helps with the ups, IMO. The rides that I've gone out and forced my self to Just Ride EZ have been the best VI's I've had this season. Not sure why that is other that it really keeps me from spiking as often as I usually do. So, that may be the mantra I take to Madison.
Anyways, thanks for the topic. I'm gonna absorb what everyone else has to add.
good thoughts, Doc!
2 hr ABP ride, 80% would be 210.
pushed 210 whenever possible, acceptable uphill stretches were 200 - 230 at the most. Though there were a handful of times that the PM jumped up to 250-270, I was able to tame them down very quickly. By riding solo (this may be the key factor in practicing this riding style), my control of the watts was vastly improved and the number of spikes was better, almost acceptable. And, most importantly, the smooth riding kept my legs pretty fresh. Not the usual ABP grind that we all know. I feel pretty good right now.
Pnorm 175. This is well below the goal of 210, but this has to do more with the descents than lack of effort pushing 210 on the flats and ups (? am I wrong?).
Pavg 172.
Thought process was simple....Can't really impact the watts too much on the descents other than riding with steady pressure (remember the 'I Don't Have A PowerMeter So I Use The Pressure In My Feet' technique?) but I can REALLY control the watts on the ups. So, focus on that part.
closest I've ever pulled it off.
These numbers are from my Joule.
So, why does my Garmin say Pnorm of 175 and Pavg of 165. That's a pretty big discrepancy, enough to make a difference. I'm eyeballing the Joule during the ride so it has precedence, IMO. I hope its accurate.
I hope you guys don't think that I've gone off on a personal training tangent. Quite the opposite...I feel like every ride out there is a practice opportunity for improving EN execution at IMMoo. And, I know that I'm not the only one who is concerned about it.
I'm interested in how others are practicing this and whether or not this is ez for you guys.
@ Scott - Error 404, File not found.
A problem, as far as numbers go, on this type of course is this...I can keep watts in goal range, 210-225ish in this case, on the inclines. But, I can't do much about how much time is spent going downhill. Lots of uphills means lots of downhills. And the delta from GW is much greater on the downs. Whereas I can back off quickly if I spike going uphill, it's a bit 'harder' to 'hammer more' to get the dips from the downhills to come up closer to GW and usually will still be well short.
I try to mesh RPE into all this mess, too. I can, and have done on many occasions, worked harder on my downs than my ups. For example, going up RPE of .8 (IF .8) hits GW of 210. Then on my descents, in an effort to keep the watts somewhere in this ballpark, I have to hammer, RPE of 10, to elevate watts up to, maybe, 170-185,190. Cool, right? end of the ride numbers should be spot on! BUT, I'm cooked from the spiked EFFORTS on the downs. Talked to Rich about this briefly and he talked me out of this habit saying that it's not worth it and downright risky behavior to ride like that out there in the real world, a safety thing. But, taking safety out of it, in my experience, there's a large investment in energy that doesn't convey to the numbers when I ride like that.
So, yeah, the overall result looks lower than it should be. But, I do think that all of this trial and error will come in handy in Madison. If I can 'level' these hills, knowing I can't 'flatten' them, then I will be prepared for the hills of Madison. Not saying that I will whip them, but I will be prepared, physically and MENTALLY.
As much as I head out on training rides to hit intervals, the ultimate goal for each ride is to practice for Madison.
BTW, do you include zero's on whatever you're using?
you had no idea I was gonna jump on this like a hungry zombie.
Chris, for a short while, I used NZAP on my Garmin because it usually comes out so close to the NP, as you observed. However, there's no good reason that it does...it's just that dropping the zeros raises the power a bit relative to AP, and so does NP...but for very different reasons. So I don't any more. If you have a Garmin that is one of the newer ones that reads NP directly, then there is no question that you should never use NZAP. That said, if you stop to go to a gas station, there's also no sense in averaging 10 minutes of zero either...so I will pause recording.
I will cede to Rich about the other advice you're asking about. I am hardly the greatest cyclist in the world. I do reasonably well by using the gearing I have (50/11 being the highest) at going downhill if the road is fairly straight or gently curved, but I'm no great bike handler.. Some of this may be a matter of intentionally training up a bit so that cycling at 110 rpm doesn't seem to be a lot of extra work. I wouldn't want to cycle at that cadence for hours, but it doesn't bother me to do it for many minutes.
Cannot get my hyperlink to work...so i'm going to remove the link. You'll have to copy-and-paste to get to the thread (works for me).
http://members.endurancenation.us/Forums/tabid/57/aft/11941/Default.aspx
Try it now!
"The only thing that I'm finding that works consistently is to really connect RPE with the watts. This saves the hammering on the downs and helps with the ups, IMO. The rides that I've gone out and forced my self to Just Ride EZ have been the best VI's I've had this season. "
Been really enjoying the new guidance on the longer bike rides this IM build. Riding slightly above race pace and really trying to engrain in my body and mind what it is to ride in the neighborhood of .75. Instead of just riding and hammering I'm hoping this will pay dividends on race day.
Notes:
Rather, focus on the components of a low VI ride:
These skills are best learned and practiced solo, but then riding with an undisciplined, slight weaker group of cyclists will help give you a visual frame of reference for how all of this works out on race day and significantly increase your confidence that this is the way to ride.
@JW -- Madison has one hill, .2mi long at 9-10%. The 2-3 "long" climbs are .5-1mi long at 5-6%. Everything else is short stuff at 3-8%. What gets you is that the course dangles carrot after carrot in front of you that says "just pop the watts and you'll roll right over this thing." Nope, there isn't a single hill out there for which is this a good strategy, even if you're >4.0w/kg. More importantly, you are constantly making decisions. The decision frequency of WI is several orders of magnitude above IMLP so many, many more opportunities to screw up.
And another thing...
In 2011 I rode a 25-12 at my camp because I didn't want the cadence gap. After my camp I decided to change to a 26-11:
really, really digging the feedback in this thread. thanks a ton. from all of you guys.
a few more weeks to practice what we're preaching.
Sounds like a great course for an Execution Ninja. I think I would like that course much better than Placid. Maybe 2015...
IMLP is very easy to "figure out," by comparison, though the run course is more challenging.