Thursday, 9 November 2017

Keeping things flat

As mentioned yesterday, this morning was all about Tempo cycling for the Front Runner Tri Team. 3 x 20 minutes done at a Tempo pace around the rolling hills of King's Park in central Perth.


As well being a great work out to build aerobic strength it was also a really good session for working on pacing.

The common cycling route in King's Park is a 6km lap that rolls up and down several hills. If you really push the hills it is easy to work very hard as you go around the lap. The issue is that the squad this morning weren't meant to be working really hard, they were supposed to be staying in the Tempo zone. So the challenge for the group this morning was to try and keep their intensity fairly steady over a rolling course.

Why bother I hear you ask. Well data analysis has shown us that the steadier a person can hold their power output on the ride leg, the better than will run. Two people may hold the same 220W on a bike leg for an Ironman. Person 1 may do this by holding exactly 220W for the entire ride leg. Person 2 may average 220W by riding half the bike at 200W (perhaps with a tailwind) and half of the bike at 240W (perhaps into a headwind). Both of these people will have held the same average power and will probably have about the same bike time. However, we know that the person who held the flat 220W will be able to run more effectively off the bike. This variation in power is what TrainingPeaks calls the variability factor and they use it as a predictor of run performance. Controlling variability is one of the really great benefits that a power meter can bring to racing.

How does all that relate to this morning's bike session. Well, we didn't have head winds and tail winds today, but we did have uphills and downhills and the concept is exactly the same. The athletes had to work on easing back and staying within the tempo zone as they went uphill and then working a bit harder and keeping the intensity up as they pushed down the hill.

This type of session is perfect training for the Busselton Ironman and Half Ironman that is coming up in a few weeks time as that course is often windy, with long stretches done with tailwinds and headwinds. In those conditions the athletes will have to concentrate on keeping their power output as flat as possible and avoid the temptation to spike power in pursuit of a particular speed.

Great session for both working hard and learning a little bit.

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