Strategy for pacing the bike on hills; overdoing it on the uphills! (Page 2)

It's all relative.  You should use more effort uphill or into the wind to achieve the best time for a given total work effort.  How much more is the question.  In LC racing (or even a long cycling TT), the answer is generally "not too much more".  Even in shorter races, the increased effort should be measured.  The only time there might be justification for doing differently would be tactical reasons (i.e., racing against specific competition where opening a gap might "deflate" them or drop them from a group's draft).  But only a few people have those types of concerns in a triathlon.  And they all still have to run after. 

I think you're absolutely correct, the difficulty is knowing what 'hard enough' feels like for different distances without using a PM as your guide!

For my racing plan my coach gave me very simple power ceilings for hills of different length.  A hill that takes 30s or less, I was allowed to go up pretty close to FTP.  A hill that takes 30s to a few minutes would be a little less than that and a longer hill would be at the same power output that I would use on the flats.   

Edited by AndrewMT 2010-11-12 10:08 AM

I just skimmed at the post so maybe I misunderstood Friel point but if the bolded is indeed what he believes, I'll  just add it to his all time hit list with:

muscular endurance
periodization = 3/1
Grey Zone
AeT
CP60
metabolic efficiency

While it is normal to increase your power when going up hill the question is how demanding you'll make the effort to get yourself up the hill. Of course it depends how steep and long the hill is but with proper planning gearing-wise you can make sure you are not spiking your power too much to the point you are wasting energy. That for triathlons will cost you later on the race, particularly for long distance tris (half/IM)

The classic phrase you read in many race reports comes to mind: "I was having the best race ever, my bike split was the fastest I've had, I was on pace for a huge PR, that was until I start walking on the run..."

No doubt, and 'hard enough' differs depending on if the finish line is at the end of the ride, or if there's still a run to do! A PM would help a lot.

One thing about hills - the slower you go, the longer you're on them!

And the faster you ride them the slower you run! 

I would sort of echo all the sentiments here. There are a number of power riders that I ride with and they like to say that they keep the same power uphill as they do downhill. Problem with that is that there is very little advantage to pushing the downhill relative to the uphill. If you climb the hill with a slightly increased effort/ hr, the speed gain % is much greater. On the downhill the added wind resistence will nullify some of that extra effort. I add a little spice (very little) on the uphill, but then try and conserve as much as possible on the downhill (and get as aero as possible if its steep). The TDF is a great (although extreme) example. The efforts are made going up and that's where the race unfolds. Rarely is a significant move made going down that is as dramatic. If Contador kept the same wattage up as he did down, he would get it handed to him.

Having said that, some of the groups I ride with from time to time turn every hill into an ego fest, and people end up blowing up all the time. I call it the accordian rides (like the music instrument)
The only thing I would disagree on is the HR. While we all know there is a few second delay in the response of the heart to the stress you give it, the fact that we all know that should be factored in. If I see my hr climbing on a hill I know that it will get higher than what I am seeing in just a few seconds, and factor that in. That's where RPE can sometimes be a great help (although and little adrenelin in the heat of the race will throw RPE out the window) and you can keep a leash on the effort. Power combined with HR I think is an exceptional way to train/race.

I didn't read anything in the OP that said ride easy up the hill; he said you want to keep your effort fairly steady.  Due to the nature of the gearing on a bicycle, you are still very likely to push a little harder on a climb and ride a little easier on the descent but the key is not to spike your power.  One of the issues with HR is that, as the OP pointed out, it lags effort so while your HR might still be in zone 2 or 3, your watts have spike to level 5+ and the damage has been done.



While Alan Couzens modelled the fastest way to ride a variety of courses, he did not model the best way to ride in order to have the fastest run.  Studies indicate that the best triathlon runs occur after the most evening paced ride (VI < 1.05) and riding with a high VI is likely to lead to a very poor run.

edit - fixed the greater than sign

Shane

Edited by gsmacleod 2010-11-12 11:11 AM

Great input TJ, but I can't agree with that last statement.  Trying to use both Power and HR seems like a really bad idea to me.  I've always believed that you choose one or the other, but never use both.

I'm curious to know if these studies were done when the courses were relatively flat or were very hilly?

Maybe it's just me (or, perhaps, how we all define "hill") but where I live I find it pretty much impossible to get up a hill without pushing hard!  

Taking it easy on a hill is not a concept that I'm familiar with!

1. I think you meant "<" not ">"
2. I hate the term "VI." It's better to use "NP/AP" since that's just what it is.

That's what I get for not proofreading...

Thanks, I fixed my original post.

Shane

It's been a while since I've read the studies but I don't recall that they described the profile; in fact, it may have even been an indoor ride.

When I get a chance, I will try to remember to look up the studies and let you know.

Shane

This....If you get dropped going up, it's very difficult to catch up going down.

Of course if you go so hard up the hill that you have to stop and take a break (exaggerating obviously), then catching up won't be so hard. But overall time gains are much more going up than coming down.

If you look at each hill individually, you're right.  But in the big picture if a racer is consistently crossing that threshold of "too hard" to drop people on the hills, then catching up with them will be easy.  They'll either have blown up by the end of the ride and struggle to make it into T2 or they'll be running so slow that they'll have no chance of holding off all the people they dropped on the hills. 

It's easy to go even higher than that especially if you're standing.  You really have to make a conscious effort to take it easy on hills.  When I was going by RPE I thought I was doing that... then I got my power meter and saw I needed to back off even more.

For those without a power meter, here's a screenshot of my power data from my last half-IM.  I had a few spikes (esp avoiding cars) but overall I kept my power output pretty level.  Power is the yellow line; brown line is elevation.

But aren't we racing to cross the finish line first after a run not be fastest up a hill?

How bike racers pace for most part is totally different than how triathletes pace a race. They surge and recover over and over.

Couldn't there be another reason for this?  You look like a thin, light guy. Speed on the uphills is controlled by W/kg (light guys rule) and that speed in the straights and downhills is controlled by W/frontal area (which doesn't vary as much).   It could have been that the guy was bigger and output more raw power but you had him on W/kg.  Does that sound right?

Absolutely and I'm not saying that you go so hard that you affect your run. As Skiba notes in his book, the body works on averages. So going slightly harder up and slightly easier down is the same thing as one constant power. I mentioned in my first post about the guy that wastes himself on the hill....obviously that is ill advised. Slightly harder up and slightly easier down is where it's at....imo. 

I am certainly curious as to why. HR is a measure of stress on the body. Power, like pace or speed, is just an output. Granted, it's more precise and detailed, it's still just an output. I think the two go hand in hand. Measure the stress on your body (whether you use HR or RPE) against a particular output. Would like to hear your thoughts.

ok im a newbie but i had a few questions//thoughts

they say keep it steady on hills, that doesnt always mean to go slow on hills... maybe push harder on flats... but obviously to do this you have to train hard with hills occasionally to get better as a whole... as you get better you can use a steady "power" but be using "more" power correct?

so how do you determine what "power/watt" to use?

would it be the same for every race and thats how you determine the pace for flats vs hills?

what if there are hills that are so brutal, you are almost using your all JUST to make it to the top and not fall over? or is that more of an issue of fatigue from burning up on previous hills?

is this the same idea as running, try and keep your heart rate steady through the run, meaning output would be less on hills to keep from burning up?

I'll wear a HR monitor while biking but I only look at it after the ride is over.  It lets me correlate my power average to HR average.  I think it's somewhat useful because it lets you see if your chosen power level was adequate for the race distance.


Race with steady power.  But training on the bike is another story.  Interval work is common.


You first determine your FTP (functional threshold power) by testing yourself on a 20 min or hour time trial.  For your race, you'll stay below that number, say - maybe 85% of your FTP... give or take depending on distance.


That's a sign you might want to change the gearing on your bike.

You very rarely see this in a tri....they are out there, but very rare.

This is the EN way of climbing a hill:

http://www.trifuel.com/training/triathlon-training/climbing-smart-o...


It makes sense to me and I use it exclusively.

Agree. Do they still ride up the beast in St. Croix? I remember watching that race as a kid and only about half the pro men could ride the entire way up and maybe 1 female. Watching pros walk their bikes up a hill was kinda cool. Sorry for the hijack