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The Cost Of Climbing Hard

SwanieSwanie
in Ironman CDA

Today was my last real bike before Ironman CdA, since "training" was done I thought I would play with some technique things that had me curious. So I found a hill that was about 1/3 of a mile that was 6% gradeish. I did 4 laps up this hill to see what different AP's would do to times. 

1st Lap-  189 watts in 2:26

2nd Lap- 202 watts in 2:18

3rd Lap- 217 watts in 2:10

4th Lap- 321 watts in 1:38

The first lap was truly stupid easy, like climb all day kind of easy. The second lap was closer to what I expect to do on race day. The third lap is likely what I would do if not actively watching my power meter. The fourth lap was just to see what a hard effort would do to the time.  So the difference between  each 15 watt  increment was 8 seconds for the 1/3 mile lap or 24 seconds per mile. The CdA course has roughly 15 miles of appreciable climbing so over the course of the bike leg I would "loose" about 6 minutes of time for every 15 watts savings.  This really shows what little you loose, timewise, by respecting the hills. 

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    David LeventhalDavid Leventhal
    interesting stuff Steve...thanks for letting us learn off your experiments!

    I have definitely NOT mastered the art of avoiding power spikes on climbs. Try as I may...focusing on pedaling "light", spinning in my easiest gears, I still end up shooting up my watts. I'm only about 2 months into this power meter thing so I'm hoping it's a matter of me becoming more familiar with it over miles and miles & hours & hours on the bike. Still...I do have some anxiety about unintentionally spiking my watts on the climbs at CDA and somehow screwing my whole day up!!

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    Al TruscottAl Truscott
    As you know, Steve, the real issue is, how mny minutes on the run would that six minute gain cost you? Walking just one mile would eat it up immediately.
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    SwanieSwanie
    Al- THAT was exactly my point. You could easily loose 30 minutes on the run by boogering up the bike by only 15 watts over those 15 miles.

    David- you'll do great! Just glue yourself to the NP display from the very beginning of each hill and keep yourself in that safe range. Mine is 190W - 200W.
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    Coach PatrickCoach Patrick
    Note -- I find it easier to keep my watts steady if I DONT shift much. My watts almost always go up when I shift easier...so good practice on how to "massage" the pedals is riding a rolling course where some of the hills are shifting optional...and you opt out an learn to pull up, not push down, etc...to keep the watts in the right space... Just a thought!
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    Shaughn SimmonsShaughn Simmons

    I think Al makes an important point below, the cost of saving minutes on the bike can be exponentially damaging to the IM run on the back half.   I have to confess, I have never run a stand alone marathon and I have always followed the EN guidance during an IM race pegging my total bike TSS at ~285..........this has allowed me to run the entire marathon of all of my IMs so far (knock on wood) with the last one being IMTX 5 weeks ago......  

    Consider what those 6 minutes might be worth to you during the marathon and pick your poison.......

    SS

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