Final IMC Race Rehearsal Complete! Data Questions
Hello from Canada, eh!
I completed my second race rehearsal yesterday to much (IMO) success! I finished the bike strong, had no difficulty maintaining focus and my nutrition was spot on. The most exciting result was my best brick to date despite zero heat acclimatization - including a negative split. Honestly I felt like I could go all day and I’m not a runner. Yet.
I’m inclined to simply repeat what I did on race day… that’s the purpose of a successful rehearsal, right? I do have a few questions about the data and how to interpret it. A couple are academic (yes, I'm a data ho) and one, my FTP, could impact how I execute on race day. I would love some feedback and insight!
My Deets:
- FTP: 210w – 231w (One of my questions!)
- Goal Watts: 147 (off of 210w)
- vDot: 42.35
- Weight: 140
- Age: 37
- Previous IMs: One, last year’s IMC
- Love Factor for EN: 10!!!
Q1: Did I hit my goal my watts?
- WKO+ spits out a “Normalized Watts” figure of 151 and an “Average Watts” of 142.
- My Garmin 800 has an “Average Watts” of 150.
- Soooo… If I was aiming for 147, did I slightly over cook it at 151 or 150? Or under cook it at 142?
Q2: What’s with the “Duration” in WKO+?
- The Garmin and my good ol’ wristwatch have a “Moving” time of 6:09 and an “Elapsed Time” of 6:46.
- Both of these times make sense to me.
- WKO+ has 6:17.
- Where the heck does that figure come from?
Q3: (The biggie) What about my FTP and resulting TSS?
- After making predictable gains in the OS I came into the IM plan with an indoor FTP I’m very confident in: 210w. Problem is, it’s been a rainy, cold summer here (I know nobody feels sorry for me) and I ended up spending a LOT of time on the trainer. I only got outside to test my FTP once. It came it at….. drumroll please…. 210w. I know outdoor FTP "should" be higher and it was my only test, so my thought process is I didn’t test well but I can never be sure. I know, I know, it’s kind of like getting a masters in mathematics and not being able to find the area under the curve. Hanging head in shame.
- In any event, I used 210w to generate my zones and for the race rehearsal which resulted in a TSS (too high) of 323. BUT if I SWAG the FTP by less than 5% to 220w it brings the TSS down to 294 which is in the ballpark. Bringing it up by 10% would bring the TSS down to a very respectable 267w. For the purposes of this exercise, I’m thinking the 5% more conservative SWAG is the way to go. And considering I felt great, I’m inclined to just wash, rinse repeat with goal watts at 147 and know my consequential TSS may be high.
- Is my thought process sound? Am I nutz? Better ideas?
Q4: On cadence.
- Normally (meaning on the trainer) I don’t have any difficulty maintaining a cadence of 90+.
- However, the world is not flat and the IMC bike course is quite notably, um, not flat.
- I see my average cadence was only 83. I’m already running an 11/28.
- Is there anything I could/should do to improve this?
Q5: Anything stand out about this RR I should consider???
The Garmin Connect file: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/105048955
WKO+ Deets Assuming FTP of 220w
Entire workout (142 watts):
Duration: 6:17:45 (6:46:38)
Work: 3205 kJ
TSS: 294.2 (intensity factor 0.685)
Norm Power: 151
VI: 1.06
Pw:HR: 1.19%
Pa:HR: -4.19%
Distance: 111.57 mi
Elevation Gain: 4741 ft
Elevation Loss: 4742 ft
Grade: -0.0 % (-6 ft)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 493 142 watts
Heart Rate: 90 196 139 bpm
Cadence: 6 205 83 rpm
Speed: 0 42.9 17.8 mph
Pace 1:24 0:00 3:22 min/mi
Altitude: 924 2508 1426 ft
Crank Torque: 0 1774 149 lb-in
Temperature: 60.8 95 79.8 Fahrenheit
Nutrition Deets:
- H20: 168 oz (28/hour) Increasing throughout the day (heat!) from 7x 24 oz bottles with 2 pee breaks.
- Calories: 1,410 C (235/hour) Started at 60’ and all on the bike, didn’t take anything on the run. Same sources as race day: 6xPower Bar gels, 1 MOJO bar and 2x Power Bar Performance Bars.
- Caffeine: 250 mg: (42/hour) pills at hour 3 and 5, 150 from gels, 2 x 100 mg caffeine pills
- Sodium: 2,903 (485ish/hour) 1,023 from 3x S! Caps, 1,200 from Power Bar Gels, 400 from Power Bar Performance Energy Bars and 280 from the MOJO bar
Thanks for any insight you can provide... I'm so excited to actually DO this thing!
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Comments
Jenn,
Q1: Use normalized watts so yes you were over your goal but 147 to 151 is not bad especially if you were feeling well. Also the Intensity factor at .685 is decent so you should be good. .7-.74 is the general guidance but when you are on the bike longer or in high heat/humidity you can dial that back .68-.69.
Q2: Are you using the little yellow computer (LYC)? I see a garmin connect file and I don't use a garmin on the bike. If so the time keeps rolling when you stop depending on you settings I believe it's somewhere in the 30 second range. So you had a difference of 8 minutes, did you stop 16 times? In the end I would not worry about it too much as the elapsed time is what matters on race day.
Just try and squeeze that elapsed time closer to the moving time. Come race day that 5, 10 or 20 minutes might get you under that hour marker.
Q3: Don't swag things to get your TSS below 300. In the end figure out your FTP from the alternative methods or use 210. From this use an intensity factor of .70 give or take but seeing as it's your first IM (correct) go conservative.
Once you get over 6 hours it becomes very hard to have your TSS below 300, it will be what it is. See the wiki for alternative method to estimate your FTP http://members.endurancenation.us/R...mining+FTP
Also your fatigue from IM training could have held your FTP at 210 for the outdoor test so it could be at the 220. What are the number if you set your FTP to 210? Do you have a watts/kg number that you could share. I went to IMC last year at 220lbs and an FTP of 241. I rode on a compact 50/34 and 12/26 and needed more gears. So my 2.4 w/kg did not cut it.
Q4: Did you run out of gears on your ride? Or was this just more grinding of gears, that is not shifting soon enought to spin? 11/28 is decent, are you running a compact. I believe there is a 32 out there but that will create a wide spacing on the rear cog.
Gordon
---Ann.
Yay! Great info, thanks Guys!
Jenn,
Just a note about the gears, yes those are the gears that are based on the spreadsheet. Remember that richter pass and yellow lake are long climbs, at least they were for me as the longes hill around me was just over 1 mile. Richter pass could take you 40 minutes to climb. Yellow lake also comes lake in the race, 160km I believe so if you feel good there then I'd say maybe hold the watts up to gear 3.
Think of it this way. Average power is how hard you rode or just the simple average of your power say over a 1 hour ride. Normalized power takes in to account 'how tired you got riding that average power'. Now what does that mean?
If you ride a VI = 1.0 then average power = normalized power. Basically you rode the same power say 200 watts for 1 hour.
In order to account for the non linear effect of riding (the increase in effort riding form 200 to 225 watts is not the same as from 225 to 250). So the normalized power accounts for this the how tired you got riding your average power.
Now as for the garmin I'm not familar with the 800 but I also get average watts on the little yellow computer for the power tap. I display 3 or 5 second averaging to get real time display of my wattage. I never look at the overall average watts for the ride, but again if your VI is good the average watts will be a good indicator or your normalized power. The Joule shows normalized power on it, but like you said it's what you have to go with.
Finally be wary of pressing too much, because after 5 hours it's very hard to move the average watts around and you could push a pretty big number and cook your self on the yellow lake climb.
Gordon
@ Gordon: All good stuff. Thanks so much
Jenn, good stuff!
My notes for you:
Good luck!
My guess as to why your Garmin 800 is showing an average power figure above the WKO+ average power, and closer to your normalized power is that it probably does not include zeros. With the latest firmware update, the default is that time spent at 0 watts (i.e. coasting) is not included in the average number, but WKO+ and Trainingpeaks does include that time, resulting in lower average numbers. Three things about that:
(1) During the Training with Power webinar, one of the panelists remarked that average power without zeros tends to be pretty close to normalized power, so you can gerry-rig a real time Norm Power display by leaving it on.
(2) Since you really want to watch the current power (I use 3 second averaging), it doesn't really matter. But it bugged the crap out of me when I thought I was averaging 280 watts for a particular loop when the Trainingpeaks data only showed 259 watts because there is a mile-long descent where I don't pedal.
(3) I don't know the menu structure on the 800, but I would bet you can google "garmin zero averaging 800" and find out how to turn it off if you want to do so, and it may be in the manual. On the 705, it was in a random menu that I didn't know existed until the manual told me where to find it.
@ Michael: THANK YOU. You get my question EXACTLY and your answer makes perfect sense. Even down to the point about “Normalized Power” (151 in my RR) and “Average Power” on the Garmin (150) being about equal. Big light bulb on over my head. Yay! Thank you so much!!!
Happy Post Double Ironman Weekend EN!
Jenn,
Great job on the race finish. Its hard to make everything perfect on an IM day. That's one more reason to sign up for next year
Gordon