I need a 19 watt increase.....

What is the course? Depending on whether it is a steady grade or variable grade, you may be able to get more out of your current sustainable power with a variable power pacing strategy. As to increasing your FTP, it's a simple formula - lots of L4s. If the course lends itself to a variable power pacing strategy, you may want to add some L5s and L6s.

It's up Mt. Washington, so it does vary a lot, and is a true average of 12 percent, not steady. I focused a lot this time on shorter bursts (3 mins and under) of 500w, trying to get my power levels up, I think I need to just grind away at my desired goal power, I'm better with that method.

The course map at the official event website (www.mwarbh.org) is a little confusing at the finish. How does the race finish? The official course map shows the route departing from the paved road and going up what appears to be a trail toward a building, then it takes a right and goes up a sidewalk or something for a short distance. Other unofficial maps of the course show different finishes. Can you take a look at the course map and Google Earth and tell me how the race finishes? I have a program that computes the optimal power management strategy for a known course under forecast conditions. The GPS file generated from a course mapping tool is not the best source file due to the elevation estimation algorithm built into these tools, but it's a first start. I'll do some analysis when I have a chance and let you know how much time you can save with a variable power pacing strategy. BTW, what are your MMPs at, say, 1, 3, 8 and 30mins? And, you said your body weight is 150LBS. What's your bike weight with bottle(s)? Do you have an iPhone? Do you live near the course?

Unfortunately I don't live near the course, but I've been up it about 10 times total for races/practice rides. The course is an actual auto road, so it is all capable of being driven in a car (people drive up it often for scenery. The last section is VERY steep, 22 percent, and is a hard right and a hard left, then about 20-30m to the finish line at the summit. It is paved mostly, but one section around mile 5, for about a mile, is packed dirt, due to that being the bad side of the mountain for weather. That part is tough because standing yields a spinning rear tire, so you need to stay seated to keep going. I haven't done max power drills for all of those times, so this is still a bit new to me. From workouts though, I've done about 700w for 1 min under control, 3 mins I've done 550w, and 5 mins 480 range. Over that I'm unsure, and this wasn't done religiously, I actually did most of it during a ladder workout. If I had to sit and do ONLY a 1 min MMP session, or 3, or 5, I can go harder, I've never been totally out of control gasping for air or anything after these since I was doing a multiple rep workout. Sorry no concrete data other than the race.

That's sort of what I thought about the finish of the course. Looking at the road map and satellite map views of the finish, the road takes a hard right and then a left half circle to a finish in front of a building. The official course map doesn't follow the road in the last section and I think it was done hastily and does not follow the actual route in the last part. Your MMP estimates for 1,3 and 5 mins are good enough for now. What does your bike weigh with bottle(s)? On a flat course, bike weight is not all that important because it's all about drag. On a climb course, it's all about total weight. Oh, can you post your Garmin ride file in an XML format? I don't know the options from your software, but an XML file can be viewed with any text application (e.g., Notepad). If it's XML, you'll see names of elements in carats as bookends to data (e.g., <altitudeMode>clampToGround</altitudeMode>😉. A binary format will have a bunch of strange looking characters. So, any XML format will do.

At 150 pounds, a 350w FTP would bring you to 5.13w/kg, you already have a very high FTP for an amateur. It might be easier to work on dropping some weight.

I've done Mt Washington. There's absolutely no scope for improvement through variable pacing. It's very steep and very consistent: you are averaging about 7 miles per hour, and never more than 10mph except in the first 100yds.

10kman: Probably the most helpful thing would be to tell us what your training was leading up to this year's race. How many hours per week were your riding and what type of training were you doing? This will give us an idea how much scope there is for improvement and what the training should look like.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by lanierb [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

I've done Mt Washington. There's absolutely no scope for improvement through variable pacing. It's very steep and very consistent: you are averaging about 7 miles per hour, and never more than 10mph except in the first 100yds.

He deployed a variable power pacing strategy this year. Perhaps there is room for improvement with a constant power pacing strategy. I still want to look at the GPS file. No road is a constant grade, even if it feels that way when you ride it.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by RapDaddyo [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

He deployed a variable power pacing strategy this year. Perhaps there is room for improvement with a constant power pacing strategy.

Yes if he was variable then he should have been constant. When you get over about 8% or so, variation in grade doesn't matter anymore for pacing. Why? The advantage to variable pacing comes from not wasting energy fighting wind. But over about 8% or so you're not fighting wind anyway because you're always going slowly. Does it really matter if it is 12% or 20% for pacing (a HUGE difference by the way)? No. You should go at a constant power the whole way.

I still want to look at the GPS file. No road is a constant grade, even if it feels that way when you ride it.

This road is damned near constant, more than anything I've ever seen and I've seen a lot. Here's some info: http://www.northeastcycling.com/Hillclimb_Races.html#Washington

It was built that way on purpose, basically because the vehicles they had in mind couldn't go over 12% and yet they had to get to the top of a very high steep mountain, so the road basically holds 12% the whole way. The exceptions are the first 100 yds, which are flat, and the last 100yds, which are >20%. The main pacing is constant high power the whole way. The one exception to this is the short part right before the finish that is a little less steep. The idea there is to go really hard (because you're almost done) but save just enough that you can sprint the last 100yds. Doing this right might save you 10 seconds.
Also, in case you are interested, here is my WKO+ power file (with GPS, elevation, power etc) from last year's race: https://dl.dropbox.com/u/1987782/Benkard_Lanier_2011_07_09_07_31_22.wko I'm not at home so I can't read the file so hopefully I grabbed the right file. If not I will fix it tonight when I get home.

Unfortunately my darn Garmin won't convert the history from the device to an importable format for the Garmin software, it's a bug and I haven't looked at it heavily to try to fix it. So at the moment I can't upload anything.

I'll try to get some more information out there based on some more posts from everyone -

Bike weight ready to go, without water bottles, is 14.5 pounds. That's with the Garmin, power meter, race wheels, etc. etc, no cheating. I use a 20 oz bottle on this climb, and it was about 2/3 full on the line. Let's say it's a pound more, so 15.5 pounds for the bike, + me being 150 pounds. Not sure how much my jersey/shorts/shoes/helmet all add to that though, it probably matters since this is all uphill. Bike has 1225g clinchers too, with how little I race, wasn't sure if building up sub 1000g tubies would be really cost effective, but the math says it would help. I confirmed my time/power data with bikecalc.com, which was within 2 seconds of my actual time, so I think everything is right to the point that I'm content going off of it to build a training program.

If you need the GPS data to look at the course elevation chart, it's nowhere near a steady grade of 12%, it's truly an average. There are sections that are sustained 15-18%, one spot is over 20%, some are flat for 30 meters, but for the most part, you are always climbing. Start is flat, leads right up into a 10% grind, first mile isn't too bad, miles 2-4 are usually my toughest spots, lots of those shorter 18% grades mixed into an already steady 14% grade type of thing. You hope for a 12% to recover a little.

This is all not factoring in wind gusts, which are often an issue. I've ridden it before with gusts hitting 60 MPH, most of the time there is some swirling wind, this day was very calm, in July for Newton's Revenge, that was a day with the 60+ gusts.

As for training, I don't race really other than those two climbs up Mt. Washington. I just sorta do them so I don't ride for no reason, coming from a running background, I never quite got rid of the competitive nature in my body, so I picked this climb since it's so brutal, and I'm pretty good going uphill. I know if I want to be better at racing I need to race more, but I'm okay with being able to ride more as an enthusiast and throw in a couple races with very focused training. No issue training to do what I want, just need a training plan to help me right now.

Usually, in the fall I put in more OD types of miles, riding for scenery, enjoying long rides and cooler weather, usually OD pace ends up being HR averaging in the low 140 range, power avg maybe 250-300 range depending on the route and how fast I feel like going. I don't do this scientifically due to the fact that I'm just out riding, not doing formal basing where I watch everything.

Winter I'm inside usually on week nights on the trainer, won't really go over 90 minutes, weekends still try to get out, nothing over 3 hours, usually 2 is good, just happy to get out usually and get some real riding in.

Spring I get in more OD miles again, usually happy to be outside, get in some hilly routes to get some life back into my legs.

Roughly around April I start paying attention to workouts, I'll start easy to get the structure/routine into my legs, I try to do Monday/Thurs as workout days, I vary what I do, sometimes longer, more sustained efforts, sometimes shorter harder efforts. Saturday I do a long ride, won't go over 4-4.5 hours though. Sunday I may mountain bike if my legs are happy if not I'll go easy for 1-2 hours.

My time per week I do build, winters I will stay around 10 hours unless I'm able to get outside on weekends, that usually adds me in some time, but my volume is low. This is something I may need to work on, I don't think I'm going slow enough/long enough, to really get in a solid base of strength.

When I build up, my peak hours are probably in July, I usually train through Newton's Revenge and treat it as a workout more than a race, hours are 15-18 per week, I can get in 18 if I really really have no life whatsoever with work and such, but 15 is usually a good balance of life and training.

I come back down to 10-12 when end July/Aug come around, I cut out any rides over 150 minutes, and am doing workouts that are roughly 60 minutes long counting warmup and cooldown, i think another issue, not enough time spent in the FTP ranges.

Without posting my entire training log that's it in a nutshell. I'm an enthusiast first, so I will go out for a 3 hour ride for no other reason than I want to, and I don't think about it, and when I'm in June/July horsepower shape, it doesn't phase me a bit, totally fine the next day and day after.

If I need to really structure myself more and stop that I can if it will get me my goal.

I do diet as well (someone mentioned losing weight), I'm light at 150 pounds and really don't have much to lose, I'm muscular but do still look way thin. I probably get into the 155-160 range over winter. Also of note, I do lift over the winter months, usually mostly leg work, squats, toe raises, etc. I remember started in November of last year at 250 pounds, 2 sets of 15 reps, by April I was repping about 380. Pardon the weight numbers, they are on a home gym (Soloflex) unit that I still have, but I do make increasing gains through it, so it is doing something for sure. I started that up a couple years ago hoping to get power increases, I think it helps, but it does make me feel slow, and takes up time, so as the time changes and days get longer, I stop the lifting and focus on riding more.

I know my numbers are not exactly slouch numbers, I mean I'm competitive in the field at these climbs and legit guys are there, some ahead of me, some behind me, but without me racing and training full time I do have a day job with house chores and just general life to handle like all of us do. When I ran, I was a sub 15 min 5k guy, ran under 1:10 half marathons, but grew to dislike the endless competition (high school, college, after college), and how unfun running became. I love riding my bike, but have competitive juices so don't want my bike to turn into a total torture device.

Summary - I probably have a habit of riding too fast/hard on OD days, can structure my training to do what I need pretty easily, I just need some good workouts to get me to the next level. That's always the issue, people can get into great shape very easily through internet searching and just doing SOME dedicated training. It's getting to that elite level that's not really published well, not sure if it's a big secret and no one wants to share real numbers when they are pretty decent, but I'm here to help and learn.

Not sure if I need to start sooner either with the FTP buildup. April may be too late? Also not sure with workouts, I do little rest between reps, I mean like 1 minute, 2 tops. My HR drops down to 135-140 in that time easily, even coming down from sustained efforts in the 175 range, even 180 on sprints.

Any more details needed let me know, happy to have this dialogue.

10k

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by lanierb [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

Also, in case you are interested, here is my WKO+ power file (with GPS, elevation, power etc) from last year's race:

That will do nicely for now. Thanks. It still has a significant elevation error due to the nature of the GPS receiver, but it will do for now.

Wow, it is unfortunate you don't race, you could really put the hurt to some people with those #s! Working your way to a Cat 1/2 level would be absolutely boring for you, you would thrash every other catagory.

As I'm still brainstorming and calculating ways to get some more wattage, is it a good idea to start a very long buildup, probably over the winter (8 months away from race date), where I do say 5-10 minutes at my GOAL FTP, couple times per week, and build to the amount of time I need to hold there? Rather than training around my current FTP, I was wondering if I could pick my goal FTP, start with lower quantities of training at that level, and end up where I want since it is so far away from race day.

Personally, I think that laying out a training plan for the next year is not the best planning exercise at this time. Rather, I think you can be gaining some valuable insights into how your body and mind respond to different types of training, especially volume. The easy part of your planning problem is that you can focus on aerobic power whereas if you wanted to do a variety of types of events, you would need to focus on aerobic power, anaerobic power and neuromuscular power. Your training plan can be similar to a rider who is preparing for the hour ride. So, the easy part is to define what should constitute most of your training time -- SST/L4 with a little L5. The hard part is to define the volume, both per ride and per week. For example, I attain my best results when I can train about 18 hours per week, 3 hours per day 6 days a week. In TSS terms, it's about 1200-1500 TSS points per week. But, my body (and mind) can handle that kind of volume and not everybody can. As a general principle, I think you get more out of volume than intensity. I do almost all of my training at about 90% of my current MMP for any given duration. So, the only time I ride at my current FTP is for shorter durations such as 10min L4 efforts where 90% of my MMP for that duration is greater than or equal to my FTP. This is definitely true in the early phases of a buildup. As I approach a target event and (hopefully) I am reaching my personal limits, I find that I need to shorten my durations and increase my intensity to continue to push up the curve. So, I do lots of L4s at 30+ minutes at ~91%FTP early in my buildup whereas in the last month of my buildup I am doing my L4s at 8-10 minutes duration and at 100%-105%FTP. The good news is that you have several months to experiment with volume and intensity to figure out what works best for you. I always think it's a good idea to discover for oneself how much volume per week is "too much." You can only find this out by experimentation. What's too much for me is not necessarily too much for you and vice versa.

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Originally Posted by 10kman [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]
Summary - I just need some good workouts to get me to the next level. That's always the issue, people can get into great shape very easily through internet searching and just doing SOME dedicated training. It's getting to that elite level that's not really published well, not sure if it's a big secret and no one wants to share real numbers when they are pretty decent, but I'm here to help and learn.

I have been cyberstalking a local Cat2 and picked out a particular pro that post their data on Strava. The only reason I am tracking their training is just out of curiosity and cannot apply what they do to my own training since I am at a recreational level. I simply could not handle their training load even if I had the spare time available.

Last week for instance the Cat2 rode from his house to a spot in N Atlanta to do 4 hill repeats sustained in the mid 300 watt range, then rode over to the place where they do Tuesday night crits, raced (repeatedly hit in the mid 300 watt range) and then rode from there back to his house, which was not a short distance. It looks like he does about 20 hours a week. About the same amount the pro that I am watching. The pro trains 7 days a week and beside a day off for what looked like travel from Utah to Colorado he has not had another day off in many weeks. But it doesn't appear that he trains with high intensity. He certainly races with high intensity.

Watching several others on Strava that I have not really seen too many with similarities other than you see a pro trains about "x" hours a week, a working Cat-2 squeezes in "x" hours a week, a struggling Cat 5 is really struggling to hold together a job, family and still get the minimum "x" hours a week. The pro I have created a spreadsheet and I put the date, kj, avg pwr, dist, duration and distance. That is about all the variables on Strava, but it is interesting to just watch even if I cannot apply it to my own goals. At a basic level of observation the thing about the pro that stands out to me is consistency of training everyday. I can tell from his data what are his active recovery days, but he is still on the bike. Plenty of pros and top level cyclist posting their data in public view.

That being said I like RDO's logic in post #15.

I think I mentioned that I have a running background, so I've done a lot of experimenting over the years. For sure, I do better with high mileage, horsepower type of training, negative splits, tempo type stuff. I used to cringe at speedwork but learned that it does help, so suffered and worked it in. On the bike, I seem to be the same, I'd much rather go ride 3 hours than do a hard interval workout, but I just don't see how I can get ftp increases from riding below my goal pace.

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by 10kman [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

On the bike, I seem to be the same, I'd much rather go ride 3 hours than do a hard interval workout, but I just don't see how I can get ftp increases from riding below my goal pace.

That's a common misperception. It sounds strange that one can increase one's FTP by never riding at or above one's current FTP, doesn't it? But, it's true. As a case in point, one year I went for about 3 months without re-testing my FTP. At the time, I was estimating my FTP at 300W and did all of my L4s at about 275W. I pounded out lots of L4 volume, but never above 275W. When I got around to re-testing my FTP, it was 326W. It's all about stress and adaptation. You can stress your aerobic capacity without riding at FTP. Try it.

Were you doing very long intervals below your FTP? And was your normal OD riding just consisting of longer rides at a lower pace?

Quoted post said:

Originally Posted by 10kman [IMG]/img/forum/go_quote.gif[/IMG]

Were you doing very long intervals below your FTP? And was your normal OD riding just consisting of longer rides at a lower pace?

I was riding about 3hrs/day 6 days/week. I did some L5-L7 efforts, but I was doing a ton of 20-40 min L4 efforts at about 91% of my estimated FTP. My L4 time as a percentage of total time on the bike was typically in the range of 60-75%. My shortest L4 was a 13-14min climb that I did at about 95%FTP. I could tell that my FTP had increased because I could handle the L4s with increasingly less perceived effort. But, by the time I got around to doing a proper FTP re-test, I had increased it almost 10%. Riding at about 90% of my MMP for any duration is infinitely easier mentally than trying to ride at 100%. I regularly do MMP testing at several durations to keep my Critical Power chart up to date, but I look forward much more to my standard rides with 90%MMP efforts.