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Power/IF/TSS at > 6 hour IM bike

shea211226shea211226
in General Training Discussions

Team,

I've read the concerns that the TSS table begins to break down for those of us with low FTPs, and subsequently long IM bike times > 6 hours.  As a first year power user and late-season starter, my FTP is pretty low (~200), and anticipated IMWI bike time 6:15-6:25.  Has anyone had experience with using the TSS table when their fitness/FTP is low?  Does it give you an accurate IF to work with?  The power and pacing guidance is to "use an IF of .7 and TSS will work itself out".  Is that true?  Thanks

Comments

  • mgraffeomgraffeo
    Richard, the table starts to break down at >7 hours. 6.5 is well within the tested range. No concerns.
  • Coach RichCoach Rich

    Richard, I would say to ride between .68-7 for bike splits slower than about 6-6:15 and let TSS sort itself out. Where to ride within that range, .68-7 I'd say is a function of your running strength.

    • If you're confident that your run fitness/endurance is solid = .7.
    • Not so sure, first time Ironman, need a conservative bike to set up your run = .68
  • ghernandghernand

    my personal experience has been that i need to go below the recommended .68-.70.

    each time i have tried to ride the .68-.70, with all the appropriate gears, i have not been able to hold my goal watts at the end.  from mile 80 onward, i adjust and end up saving the ride/race, but it's discouraging while it is happening. 

    i now pay really close attention to my RR numbers and ride according to what those results say.  if it says i can't ride at 0.68, for the whole 112miles, then i see what i WAS able to do = more like 0.64 despite perfect nutrition and not doing anything dumb.

    so, analyze your RR's and go with whatever your rseults say.  don't just go by what is on the charts, unless your results correlate well with the charts.

    gh

     

  • cwhytecwhyte
    When I give general advice on this question it's a duplicate of what Rich wrote. However, to Gliberto's point, it's important to understand the relative "strength" of your 5hr power. Sorry, I'm going to pick on Gilberto for a moment since he provided a specific example.

    If you've determined that you can't hold goal watts at the end of a long ride that's targeted for .68 - .70 then it's safe to say there's a fairly significant problem with your 5hr power (relative to your FTP). Bottom line, you should easily be able to hold goal watts on a long ride targeted at .75. Now that doesn't mean you can run a good marathon afterward but you should definitely be able to hold goals watts for that ride. To give you a sense of how this scales, someone who consistently does their IM bike around .72- .74 can probably hold goal watts for a long ride targeted for .77 - .79 and I suspect that someone like TJ has now demonstrated that he could probably easily hold goal watts for a long ride targeted at somewhere in the low .80s.

    Now, maybe the better question is: What do you need to do to fix it?

    Thanks, Chris
  • ghernandghernand

    yup, i have already come up with my fix.  the "broke" was riding at too low watts except for the shorter stuff.  i was riding a lot of long distance, but not at high enough effort.  thus, overall i was still strong enough to arrive at top 1/3 overall in all my ENdriven IM races, despite not being able to hold watts over 112miles, but i can go a lot faster.

    my short term fix for CdA this year was to adjust IF appropriately, as i suggested in this thread.  my intention in making this suggestion to the author of this post, was to provide an alternative option for planning IF, if he was finding that .68-.70 was too hard over greater than 6.5hrs.  my short term fix gave me a very solid bike for my current ability at CdA this year and it was my best executed bike to date.

    my long term fix, currently, is to ride the longer stuff at higher watts.  this should get me back to the range of the TSS charts.  we'll see at CdA2012.

    gh

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