@CoachR - My question was along the lines of "which data should we put on the Maximals Chart to determine our 5 HR target?" Is that what you answered or were you referring to what we look at on the ride? I have lots of buddies that I ride with that I have to apply the jackass factor to the numbers when we ride together! No, I wasn't answering that questions because I don't know the answer to it. I'm tracking my stuff in TrainingPeaks and I'm hoping there's a solution that doesn't involve the purchase of WKO 3.0 (very old), people on Macs installing Windows to run it, or people with old netbooks (me) digging them up and jamming data into them. The short answer is "do 4-5hr rides and note your Pnorm from those rides." That's what I'm doing.
But I was curious about developing the target. On my current Maximals chart (Golden Cheetah) I have the ability to look at either Pavg or NP. I was wondering what you guys suggest that we use on the chart to develop our targets? I have been using Pavg, because it is a real number, but I typically look at the NP chart to see what I have paid for at 5 hours too. That's what I was saying, look at Pnorm as that's the number that has more input on your ability to run off the bike. And our goal is to minimize this while maximizing Pavg, which of course all means a low VI.
That said, I note Pavg and it's an informal goal. That is, on the 100mi ride that I did in 4:18 at 227w Pnorm, my Pavg was 214w. That 214w means something to me, in relation to my other long rides, specifically "I was able to sustain a shit ton of work, for me, for over four hours." That tells me something about my fitness as a function of an improved ability to produce a lot of work over an extended period. So while my long term goal over the next ~8wks is increase my 5hr Pnorm into the high 220's, low 230's, a secondary goal would be to push Pavg into the low to mid 220's. The combination of ^this^ would give me a lot of confidence that (1) my fitness has/is improving and (2) riding on race day in the low 220's Pnorm has been validated and (3) I'm headed for good things when these numbers are related to past performances in the ~5:08-5:11 range on ~214-216w Pnorm.
What I'm talking about here is referencing numbers frequently to create benchmarks and goals for key sessions and using the overall combination and progression of these numbers to develop and gain confidence in a plan.
I'm starting from scratch. I have a solid FTP (inside/tri position/stages). Saturday, I plan on going out for 4hrs and holding a strong pace for the duration. While I have no clue what watts will cause me to blow up, I am not planning on going into it with anything less than 90% of FTP (adjusted for outside/tri postion/stages) for the duration. Afterwards, the analysis of this ride will tell me more for the next few weekends.
Right?
Will be watching Pavg since my 310xt doesn't show Pnorm and that's cool with me. I'll just keep trying to stay ahead of the Pavg by a couple of watts and try my best to keep a decent VI on this terrain.
I plan on going out for 4hrs and holding a strong pace for the duration. While I have no clue what watts will cause me to blow up, I am not planning on going into it with anything less than 90% of FTP...for the duration.
I have been following all the new responses to this thread but not yet had time fro thoughtful reply. I will say, Chris, I have been riding what I think is "Withrow-style" for the past ~4 weeks of long rides and 90% of a traditionally-tested (i.e. 2x20 or whatever) FTP would be too much for me. If the point is to ride very hard but not so hard that it incurs downstream recovery cost then my general benchmark is something like 0.82-0.85 for the whole ride with the first half hour lower and most of the ride at around 0.85 and no power fade at the end. If I went at 90% for 4.5 hours I think I would have a big fade and be unable to hold watts to the end of the ride, and/or a recovery cost. My Sunday ride right now is 3:15 in duration and I am usually only about 5% lower than the Saturday ride -- typically I start off barely able to hold z2 watts but as I build into it I can usually finish off the last 2 hours at about 0.80-0.83 with no fade (also, I have been pre-running 5 miles before the Sunday ride which may also explain the difficulty in getting the watts up at the beginning).
In my experience, 90% of FTP ride for 4hrs on flat-ish ground on a tri bike is not possible. If you were climbing continuously for 3-4hrs...maybe. Otherwise, not possible. 4hrs at 82-85% is a fookin' hard ride. Sounds like you're doing some SWAG of converting indoors to outdoors, road vs tri, etc to get some numbers to target, and that's fine. But 90% of an accurate FTP just ain't gonna happen, unless you're on the Sky program I guess
I plan on going out for 4hrs and holding a strong pace for the duration. While I have no clue what watts will cause me to blow up, I am not planning on going into it with anything less than 90% of FTP...for the duration.
(also, I have been pre-running 5 miles before the Sunday ride which may also explain the difficulty in getting the watts up at the beginning).
As I focus on (1) achieving consistent weekly run volume in the low to mid/high 40 mpw and (2) targeting 4-5hr power on one very tri-specific rider per week, I'm removing the pre-ride run from ^this^ ride, shifting those run miles to elsewhere in the week, or much later in the day.
In my experience, 90% of FTP ride for 4hrs on flat-ish ground on a tri bike is not possible. If you were climbing continuously for 3-4hrs...maybe. Otherwise, not possible. 4hrs at 82-85% is a fookin' hard ride. Sounds like you're doing some SWAG of converting indoors to outdoors, road vs tri, etc to get some numbers to target, and that's fine. But 90% of an accurate FTP just ain't gonna happen, unless you're on the Sky program I guess
Rich, those numbers are totally consistent with my experience (see my post above just minutes earlier).
... Saturday, I plan on going out for 4hrs and holding a strong pace for the duration. While I have no clue what watts will cause me to blow up, I am not planning on going into it with anything less than 90% of FTP (adjusted for outside/tri postion/stages) for the duration. Afterwards, the analysis of this ride will tell me more for the next few weekends.
Right?...
Do that for TWO hours non-stop, and we'll be impressed. As Rich and Matt have already noted, 4 hours @ 90% ain't gonna happen. 90% is what most of us actually ride an Olympic distance (1 hour-1.25 hours) at; for a 2:45-3 hour HIM, 80% would be the general area. Besides, 90% may be one of those "dead zones" for training. Better to do 8-15 min intervals @ 95%, or 20-30 min intervals @ 80-83%. Take an easy JRA recovery for 2-5 minutes every now and then during the ride, and you'll have a chance of finishing with your legs intact, and ready to go again the next day. Oh, and don't forget a 20+ min warm-up, and 10 minute minimum cool down as part of the 4 hours. You'll get plenty of data to ponder.
I'm not crazy enough to think I could've pulled it off. I was thinking about just pressing hard (which feels about 90% to me) for 'as long as I can'. I started last weekend getting ready for this HIM in Oct. My Saturday ride main set was 5x 20'(5') @ 80%. Executed very well. It sounds like you're suggesting that I could approach this 'getting your 4hr or 5hr power' ride with a similar approach, just stretched out longer.
And, I'm supposed to include the w/u and cooldown? I wouldn't have done that part.
re: '...and ready to go again the next day.' This is my biggest concern.
I never really had a problem with downstream recovery if only riding 2 days in a row (with the caveat that my 2nd day power was ALWAYS at least 30-40 Watts lower than the 1st day ride). With that said, I was hoping to get to 80-83% for my 5hr NP. I never got above 83% (and often well below 80%). I also ALWAYS had a stronger last hour than 1st hour. So I never went out at 90% and tried to "hang on later". It was more like, start at 80% for the first hour and build up from there, with the last 30-45 mins at 85% if possible. I was usually riding a bit over 5hrs as well so I could cut-off the first 15-20 mins (I NEVER warmed up more than this on the day 1 ride).
Arguably, I also wasn't particularly concerned with a low VI during most of my training rides as I know how to "flip that switch on" when I need it. So during my race, my NP was much lower, but my AP probably wasn't a ton lower than my goal because I raced at a much lower VI than much of my training. Keep in mind that my limiter was usually not enough time to train vs. not enough recovery time for the training I was doing. So I took the logic of, "If I only had X hours to ride, let me get as much work into my legs as I can in those X hours", hence a higher VI and a higher NP = more work in a given amount of time.
I wasn't very sure where to start so I was aware that I was setting myself up for a blowup in order to get an idea of a baseline for the following big rides.
I'll take everyone's advice/experience and just inject it right off the bat. I'll stick to 80% and build from there.
John, if my VI goes out the roof, my power will fade considerably over the tail of the ride. Props to ya for working through that.
One quick note as the "not bike coach" inside EN, I don't think that folks should be doing some calculator math to generate a 5 hour power target. As OP has noted above, we have Race Pace Plus intervals, which would be your FTP (known), at a certain % (based off of your estimated ride time on your race course, see power chart)...then we "add" a few % to that number to build you up.
A RPP ride is great work, very challenging and very effective. A useful tool as you can see by 25' increment how you are performing, etc.
Riding 5 hours really upper steady in Z3 is hard. Super hard. This is a top 1% workout, for all your lurkers. And it's not only hard to do physically but it's harder to do "right" to get good data (In my experience, most 5h rides have stops, issues, traffic, etc).
I am doing riding .85 to .9 for 50 miles right now, having done it for 6 weeks for like 30 miles. I am murdering myself and still not close to Coach Rich's easy IM speed (what's up with that!!?!??) and can't see riding that hard for any longer than 50 miles...I literally have to stop my bike on the side of the road to eat as I can't breathe and eat at that pace.
For me the value of the 5HP discussion has been confirming what I CAN DO for my race, not what I SHOULD DO. I ride all sorts of hard and crazy in training, but you'll see my race numbers are very consistent. I can get all jacked about my four hour ride, but I know the 5-hour version of that number will be lower...and put a swim in front and a marathon pending...not so much. Sure I can put up 300+ watts for 2 hours, and 285 for 4 hours...in training...but on race day I have yet to crack 245 NP I believe.
So, my thoughts:
+ Ride 5 hours. + Ride it sustainably hard, improving your effort (no fade) as Matt A suggests / has shown. + Work to push that number higher each time as a tool to increase your fitness (and "effort tolerance") + Understand that a standalone really hard ride isn't an approximation to race pace...your 5HP from a Race Sim Ride is, however!
I think it's useful to structure this discussion around COULD vs SHOULD bike splits. And I'll use myself as an example because I'm right in the middle of doing all of this myself, in addition to sort out nutrition, hydration, and heat adaptation stuff per the other thread we have going on in the forum.
And if you like, you can preview my Racing with Power wiki post, in which I'm formally building a page and processes that I discussed in my Racing with Power webinar earlier this month.
This is the process I'm going through / where my head is at:
Historically my SHOULD Pnorm for an Ironman bike is ~213-217w Pnorm. This is based on my FTP x a reasonable IF and has been proofed out on many RR's and races through the years. So I've got that number in my head.
At the same time, I'm closely tracking what we could call my COULD 5hr power. From a couple recent rides that's in the mid to high 220's. Between now and my final RR for IMWI, and with the exception of 1x RR I'll do on the IMWI course during my camp in a couple weeks, I'm going to pick courses that (1) facilitate intervals at 80-85% and (2) have the admin infrastructure (?) that allows me to stop every 2hrs to refill bottles and get my hydration and nutrition dialed in. #2 is probably more important, for me, frankly. Anyway, the intent of ^these^ rides is to target and improve my 5HP "COULD" number, with a goal of getting this into the high 220's, low 230's. So:
I'm doing hard work on Wednesday to lift my FTP from ~285w to about 295w
Doing hard work on the weekend to lift my 5HP from ~225w to ~232-235w
Proofing out nutrition and hydration in these weekend rides.
Over the next several weeks, ^these^ activities begin to paint a picture for me of what my SHOULD power should be, which I proof out in RR #1, on the IMWI course, and RR#2 at home. My goal SHOULD number is about 220w, as is the result of ^this^ work above.
I would definitely say this process of (1) targeting FTP improvement and (2) targeting 5HP COULD improvement is an Advanced or Intermediate method/focus, as a key factor is ideally having a lot of historical data to guide you. For example, for me there is a TON of information in the numbers between 210w and 235w Pnorm . I have a ton of experience with these numbers and I'm very, very familiar with how things change, evolve, what my body experiences, as I move around inside that number range.
For athletes without that level of experience:
You're still going to target FTP improvement, honing in on a "racing vs training FTP." Please see the DRAFT wiki article above for where I'm going with this.
From there you're going to use the TSS tables to extract an IF, calc a Pnorm.
From there you're going to use all of your long rides from ~Week 13 through Week 18 of the EN*Full plan (note that you have RR's in wk15 and wk18) to equally (1) track your 5HP, narrowing down your SHOULD power, and (2) further proof out this SHOULD power in your wk15 and wk18 RR's.
In short, we could say that these athletes are more focused on proofing out their SHOULD power, while athletes with more experience (and data) are focused on lifting their COULD power, because they already have a pretty good idea of what their SHOULD power should/will be, based on their experience.
And, don't forget that both sets of athletes are also observing HR and RPE, and proofing out nutrition and hydration plans during all of this.
However, what I'm working towards a system that's more complete and improvement upon what we've done in the past:
Athlete does FTP testing in ~wk12
Uses that number to enter the TSS tables, extract an IF and calc watts for RR#1 in wk15.
Does more training in wk16 and wk17, but we haven't explicitly told them how to relate their wk16 and 17 training to their numbers from RR#1 in wk15.
Athlete does a final FTP test in wk17 (or 18, I forget) on tired legs. Note that I removed this test from the plans about 3wks ago, in preparation for building out this Racing with Power suite of information and processes.
Does RR#2 in Wk18.
More importantly, my observation is that we've had many athletes simply do a fat finger drill to pick an IF off the TSS table, stick that into a calculator, slap some numbers on their stem and ride those on race day. What I want to work towards is a process that takes better advantage of the work you're doing in wk13-18 to give you better SHOULD numbers to use on race day.
Crap, gotta get of this thing and do long run part 1 now..
Great info from Rich. To add to it, my only thought is this:
If you are a first time IM athlete, you can talk all you want with the guys who have done 6, 8 or 97 IM races, but it's all talk until you have survived the training for and have raced one.
Our baseline system for getting you ready to pace an IM through training and our tools is incredibly effective. No need to tweak it based off of what Timmy "I do 9 IM Races a Year" McTrigeek does.
Success for first time IM athletes is ability to ride a proven steady pace that won't fade, during which they fuel adequately, and then can execute a good run (not slowing down). As simple as ^that^ sounds it puts you ahead of 95% of the field out of the gate.
Comments
I'm starting from scratch. I have a solid FTP (inside/tri position/stages). Saturday, I plan on going out for 4hrs and holding a strong pace for the duration. While I have no clue what watts will cause me to blow up, I am not planning on going into it with anything less than 90% of FTP (adjusted for outside/tri postion/stages) for the duration. Afterwards, the analysis of this ride will tell me more for the next few weekends.
Right?
Will be watching Pavg since my 310xt doesn't show Pnorm and that's cool with me. I'll just keep trying to stay ahead of the Pavg by a couple of watts and try my best to keep a decent VI on this terrain.
In my experience, 90% of FTP ride for 4hrs on flat-ish ground on a tri bike is not possible. If you were climbing continuously for 3-4hrs...maybe. Otherwise, not possible. 4hrs at 82-85% is a fookin' hard ride. Sounds like you're doing some SWAG of converting indoors to outdoors, road vs tri, etc to get some numbers to target, and that's fine. But 90% of an accurate FTP just ain't gonna happen, unless you're on the Sky program I guess
As I focus on (1) achieving consistent weekly run volume in the low to mid/high 40 mpw and (2) targeting 4-5hr power on one very tri-specific rider per week, I'm removing the pre-ride run from ^this^ ride, shifting those run miles to elsewhere in the week, or much later in the day.
Do that for TWO hours non-stop, and we'll be impressed. As Rich and Matt have already noted, 4 hours @ 90% ain't gonna happen. 90% is what most of us actually ride an Olympic distance (1 hour-1.25 hours) at; for a 2:45-3 hour HIM, 80% would be the general area. Besides, 90% may be one of those "dead zones" for training. Better to do 8-15 min intervals @ 95%, or 20-30 min intervals @ 80-83%. Take an easy JRA recovery for 2-5 minutes every now and then during the ride, and you'll have a chance of finishing with your legs intact, and ready to go again the next day. Oh, and don't forget a 20+ min warm-up, and 10 minute minimum cool down as part of the 4 hours. You'll get plenty of data to ponder.
I'm not crazy enough to think I could've pulled it off. I was thinking about just pressing hard (which feels about 90% to me) for 'as long as I can'. I started last weekend getting ready for this HIM in Oct. My Saturday ride main set was 5x 20'(5') @ 80%. Executed very well. It sounds like you're suggesting that I could approach this 'getting your 4hr or 5hr power' ride with a similar approach, just stretched out longer.
And, I'm supposed to include the w/u and cooldown? I wouldn't have done that part.
re: '...and ready to go again the next day.' This is my biggest concern.
I never really had a problem with downstream recovery if only riding 2 days in a row (with the caveat that my 2nd day power was ALWAYS at least 30-40 Watts lower than the 1st day ride). With that said, I was hoping to get to 80-83% for my 5hr NP. I never got above 83% (and often well below 80%). I also ALWAYS had a stronger last hour than 1st hour. So I never went out at 90% and tried to "hang on later". It was more like, start at 80% for the first hour and build up from there, with the last 30-45 mins at 85% if possible. I was usually riding a bit over 5hrs as well so I could cut-off the first 15-20 mins (I NEVER warmed up more than this on the day 1 ride).
Arguably, I also wasn't particularly concerned with a low VI during most of my training rides as I know how to "flip that switch on" when I need it. So during my race, my NP was much lower, but my AP probably wasn't a ton lower than my goal because I raced at a much lower VI than much of my training. Keep in mind that my limiter was usually not enough time to train vs. not enough recovery time for the training I was doing. So I took the logic of, "If I only had X hours to ride, let me get as much work into my legs as I can in those X hours", hence a higher VI and a higher NP = more work in a given amount of time.
I wasn't very sure where to start so I was aware that I was setting myself up for a blowup in order to get an idea of a baseline for the following big rides.
I'll take everyone's advice/experience and just inject it right off the bat. I'll stick to 80% and build from there.
John, if my VI goes out the roof, my power will fade considerably over the tail of the ride. Props to ya for working through that.
A RPP ride is great work, very challenging and very effective. A useful tool as you can see by 25' increment how you are performing, etc.
Riding 5 hours really upper steady in Z3 is hard. Super hard. This is a top 1% workout, for all your lurkers. And it's not only hard to do physically but it's harder to do "right" to get good data (In my experience, most 5h rides have stops, issues, traffic, etc).
I am doing riding .85 to .9 for 50 miles right now, having done it for 6 weeks for like 30 miles. I am murdering myself and still not close to Coach Rich's easy IM speed (what's up with that!!?!??) and can't see riding that hard for any longer than 50 miles...I literally have to stop my bike on the side of the road to eat as I can't breathe and eat at that pace.
For me the value of the 5HP discussion has been confirming what I CAN DO for my race, not what I SHOULD DO. I ride all sorts of hard and crazy in training, but you'll see my race numbers are very consistent. I can get all jacked about my four hour ride, but I know the 5-hour version of that number will be lower...and put a swim in front and a marathon pending...not so much. Sure I can put up 300+ watts for 2 hours, and 285 for 4 hours...in training...but on race day I have yet to crack 245 NP I believe.
So, my thoughts:
+ Ride 5 hours.
+ Ride it sustainably hard, improving your effort (no fade) as Matt A suggests / has shown.
+ Work to push that number higher each time as a tool to increase your fitness (and "effort tolerance")
+ Understand that a standalone really hard ride isn't an approximation to race pace...your 5HP from a Race Sim Ride is, however!
I think it's useful to structure this discussion around COULD vs SHOULD bike splits. And I'll use myself as an example because I'm right in the middle of doing all of this myself, in addition to sort out nutrition, hydration, and heat adaptation stuff per the other thread we have going on in the forum.
And if you like, you can preview my Racing with Power wiki post, in which I'm formally building a page and processes that I discussed in my Racing with Power webinar earlier this month.
This is the process I'm going through / where my head is at:
Historically my SHOULD Pnorm for an Ironman bike is ~213-217w Pnorm. This is based on my FTP x a reasonable IF and has been proofed out on many RR's and races through the years. So I've got that number in my head.
At the same time, I'm closely tracking what we could call my COULD 5hr power. From a couple recent rides that's in the mid to high 220's. Between now and my final RR for IMWI, and with the exception of 1x RR I'll do on the IMWI course during my camp in a couple weeks, I'm going to pick courses that (1) facilitate intervals at 80-85% and (2) have the admin infrastructure (?) that allows me to stop every 2hrs to refill bottles and get my hydration and nutrition dialed in. #2 is probably more important, for me, frankly. Anyway, the intent of ^these^ rides is to target and improve my 5HP "COULD" number, with a goal of getting this into the high 220's, low 230's. So:
Over the next several weeks, ^these^ activities begin to paint a picture for me of what my SHOULD power should be, which I proof out in RR #1, on the IMWI course, and RR#2 at home. My goal SHOULD number is about 220w, as is the result of ^this^ work above.
I would definitely say this process of (1) targeting FTP improvement and (2) targeting 5HP COULD improvement is an Advanced or Intermediate method/focus, as a key factor is ideally having a lot of historical data to guide you. For example, for me there is a TON of information in the numbers between 210w and 235w Pnorm . I have a ton of experience with these numbers and I'm very, very familiar with how things change, evolve, what my body experiences, as I move around inside that number range.
For athletes without that level of experience:
And, don't forget that both sets of athletes are also observing HR and RPE, and proofing out nutrition and hydration plans during all of this.
However, what I'm working towards a system that's more complete and improvement upon what we've done in the past:
More importantly, my observation is that we've had many athletes simply do a fat finger drill to pick an IF off the TSS table, stick that into a calculator, slap some numbers on their stem and ride those on race day. What I want to work towards is a process that takes better advantage of the work you're doing in wk13-18 to give you better SHOULD numbers to use on race day.
Crap, gotta get of this thing and do long run part 1 now..
If you are a first time IM athlete, you can talk all you want with the guys who have done 6, 8 or 97 IM races, but it's all talk until you have survived the training for and have raced one.
Our baseline system for getting you ready to pace an IM through training and our tools is incredibly effective. No need to tweak it based off of what Timmy "I do 9 IM Races a Year" McTrigeek does.
Success for first time IM athletes is ability to ride a proven steady pace that won't fade, during which they fuel adequately, and then can execute a good run (not slowing down). As simple as ^that^ sounds it puts you ahead of 95% of the field out of the gate.