maintaining power output for 5+ hours

I'm thinking it was the elevation, although I didn't feel weaker when I was climbing Mt Washington (same height).

That sounds like a tough ride, it was probably a combination of low glycogen and just being hammered.

wilmar13 said:

Yesterday I did the Assault on Mt. Mitchell which is a 102 mile ride with chip timing (race to some of us 😉 ) with 11,000 ft of climbing, 6,000 of it in the last 23 miles ending at the top of Mt. Mitchell (elevation ~6600ft). I got 17th of 1000 starters with a time of 5:40 and change, but I could have done better if my power did not drop off so bad in the last 90 minutes up the majority of the climbing. My FTP is 320-340, and over the first mountain climb, I maintained and avg power of 300 watts thinking I could maintain this for the final two hours... over the next 4000ft of climbing though, I could not go past 250 watts... my heartrate was really low (140bpm) and I had no trouble making conversation with riders I passed (who were struggling so bad they couldn't respond) and course workers. My legs were weak, but I did not feel hungary or dehydrated.

Was it merely nutrition (i.e. I was out of glycogen), or is it muscle endurance 😕 . Most training literature talks about what a waste of time training sessions over 3 hours are, but is this a case of need to train 6 hours with lots of climbing in order to perform well in an event such as this? Any other ideas on how to improve sustainable power for long distance events?

A friend of mine got 11th....red specialized with Outspokin jersey.

I always am able to go harder after getting a coke and candy bar...last weekend I did ceasars head to 278 to blueridge to 215 to 178...100 miles RT. I died at mile 70 but after a coke was hammering again. It's tough on mitchell when you're not really stopping.

wilmar13 said:

Yesterday I did the Assault on Mt. Mitchell which is a 102 mile ride with chip timing (race to some of us 😉 ) with 11,000 ft of climbing, 6,000 of it in the last 23 miles ending at the top of Mt. Mitchell (elevation ~6600ft). I got 17th of 1000 starters with a time of 5:40 and change, but I could have done better if my power did not drop off so bad in the last 90 minutes up the majority of the climbing. My FTP is 320-340, and over the first mountain climb, I maintained and avg power of 300 watts thinking I could maintain this for the final two hours... over the next 4000ft of climbing though, I could not go past 250 watts... my heartrate was really low (140bpm) and I had no trouble making conversation with riders I passed (who were struggling so bad they couldn't respond) and course workers. My legs were weak, but I did not feel hungary or dehydrated.

Was it merely nutrition (i.e. I was out of glycogen), or is it muscle endurance 😕 . Most training literature talks about what a waste of time training sessions over 3 hours are, but is this a case of need to train 6 hours with lots of climbing in order to perform well in an event such as this? Any other ideas on how to improve sustainable power for long distance events?

A couple of points:
1. You got high enough for the altitutde to have some affect on power output.
2. Even if you weren't hungry, you may have needed to eat more.
3. What was your Np for the total ride? You may have just expected too much as a % of threshold.
4. Great ride! I've never ridden Mt. Mitchell, but I know that it's a beast. 17th is darn respectable.

Great ride and great finish. My own experience is that the power/duration curve declines continuously albeit at a declining rate. I know that my 2 hr MP is only ~90-95% of my 1 hr MP. I think it continuously declines and if I were to predict my 5 hr MP it would be ~75-80% of my 1 hr MP. Depending on the grades, you might have had a better time by distributing your total available 5 hr NP differently.

Thanks for the replies...

Regarding the altitude, that would make sense to me if HR was high, and power was low, but HR was low and I just couldn't push any harder. This makes me think it was muscle endurance, because maybe I could have pushed harder, but my legs were dead. I guess I don't have much practice climbing (this much) to know what factors limited my output. Just to cover all bases: cause/correction

1) out of glycogyn/eat more during, get more calories
2) altitude effects/ train at altitude
3) not used to climbing/ climb more
4) physiological endurance limitations/ Train more, longer 😕

Really #4 is what I am not sure how to improve... is it just a matter of longer training to maintain power longer? Why could I not push myself even harder, I have never experienced this before... it wasn't a matter of I didn't feel like it, I don't think I could, and yet I wasn't that tired (I didn't feel bonked).

mr_mojo said:

A friend of mine got 11th....red specialized with Outspokin jersey.

I know who you are talking about (I remember him), but I do not know him.

mr_mojo said:

I always am able to go harder after getting a coke and candy bar...last weekend I did ceasars head to 278 to blueridge to 215 to 178...100 miles RT. I died at mile 70 but after a coke was hammering again. It's tough on mitchell when you're not really stopping.

True I did stop twice though, to get bottles, and to pee. One thing I forgot to mention in my previous post is that I did have reletively severe stomach cramps in the last 90 minutes, I assumed this was because my stomach was too full of energy drink and preride breakfast (I ate a lot)... Does the cramping signify anything? I had not eaten anything for 5 hours before the cramps started, and was drinking a 4:1 carb/protein energy drink.

RapDaddyo said:

Great ride and great finish. My own experience is that the power/duration curve declines continuously albeit at a declining rate. I know that my 2 hr MP is only ~90-95% of my 1 hr MP. I think it continuously declines and if I were to predict my 5 hr MP it would be ~75-80% of my 1 hr MP. Depending on the grades, you might have had a better time by distributing your total available 5 hr NP differently.

yes that is true for sure... I pushed hard too often in the first 80 miles closing breaks, etc., but how do I go about raising my MP for 5+ hours rather than just rationing what it is now?

wilmar13 said:

yes that is true for sure... I pushed hard too often in the first 80 miles closing breaks, etc., but how do I go about raising my MP for 5+ hours rather than just rationing what it is now?

That's a good question and I am beginning to work on my 2 hr MP for that reason, for a hillclimb TT that will require ~2 hrs. Long L4 rides? This is a subject that is rarely discussed, increasing long duration MPs.

RapDaddyo said:

This is a subject that is rarely discussed, increasing long duration MPs.

Good lets discuss it 😄 . Maybe it is more appropriate in the training forum, I don't know... but I am glad it isn't something been discussed ad nauseam receiving a "do a search" type response. Maybe a stupid question, but will long distance, higher intensity rides result in higher long duration MPs? Seems intuitively obvious to the most casual of observers that the answer would be yes, but so much training advice is focused on shorter efforts with higher intensity... I can only assume this is because in races (at a Cat3 level) you are rarely racing for more than 3 hours. Does this still hold true for longer events?

wilmar13 said:

Maybe a stupid question, but will long distance, higher intensity rides result in higher long duration MPs? Seems intuitively obvious to the most casual of observers that the answer would be yes, but so much training advice is focused on shorter efforts with higher intensity... I can only assume this is because in races (at a Cat3 level) you are rarely racing for more than 3 hours. Does this still hold true for longer events?

I found this article on BTR:
http://www.biketechreview.com/performance/mitochondria.htm

Basically the last two paragraphs are what I was looking for:

Kirk Willett said:

In particular, long, exclusively easy rides do not appear to effectively promote mitochondrial development and/or bolster the size of one’s aerobic engine. The process of building a bigger aerobic engine appears to be skewed towards an accumulation of high intensity training over time. Eventually though, it is largely the ability to deliver oxygen to our mitochondria which limits the rate at which our mitochondria can generate ATP from the variety of organic molecules that can be oxidized. Without adequate oxygen, the chemical reactions involved in aerobic respiration are impaired. The primary reason our aerobic engines can only be so big is because our cardiac output and our blood’s oxygen carrying capacity can only be so good!

Once one gets beyond engine size, there are other factors which can influence performance. One cannot expect to have reached their performance potential in extremely long endurance events on a diet of exclusively one hour rides with high intensity intervals. The targeting of an event’s expected, more specific demands, such as a combination of the total work and the distribution of that work, is likely to be of benefit. In at least the weeks leading up to target events, an additional 1-2 rides per week can augment the 20MP+ training discussed above. It may be that these days are combined with the 20MP+ work. For example, if one is targeting an event expected to require 4000kj’s, it would be wise to include some training in preparation for the event which approximates those demands, even if such training is not likely to be helpful in building a larger aerobic engine.

So if my interpretation is correct, what the author is stating is that I need to continue shorter duration intensity training, but also do some training equivalent in total work expended... which in the case of yesterday's ride is 5000Kj... My engine size is not the problem (in this case), but rather endurance to maintain that power. What I am not clear about is: Can I train to do 5000Kj of work in 4 hours (or 8 hours) or does it need to be 5000Kj in 5h30min if that is my goal. Ah it is all so confusing.

wilmar13 said:

Can I train to do 5000Kj of work in 4 hours (or 8 hours) or does it need to be 5000Kj in 5h30min if that is my goal. Ah it is all so confusing.

My reading is that he is suggesting training rides that approximate the total work capacity even if the rides don't approximate the intensity. But, there's no reason such rides have to be at a constant power. What about a long series of L4 intervals with recovery durations that result in the target Kj of work?

RapDaddyo said:

My reading is that he is suggesting training rides that approximate the total work capacity even if the rides don't approximate the intensity. But, there's no reason such rides have to be at a constant power. What about a long series of L4 intervals with recovery durations that result in the target Kj of work?

Or, if you know you need to put out 'x' Watts for 'y' minutes after expending 'z'kJ, then can you not also simulate this in a ride? For me, this seems analagous to replicating the the demands of a particular race in training.

Dini77 said:

Or, if you know you need to put out 'x' Watts for 'y' minutes after expending 'z'kJ, then can you not also simulate this in a ride? For me, this seems analagous to replicating the the demands of a particular race in training.

Yes, although one has to be a little careful with anaerobic work capacity. Because part of AWC does not recover, you would want to deplete AWC similarly to the cumulative demands of a race prior to riding at x watts for y minutes. But, there's no reason such efforts can't be scripted to be completely realistic of race specificity. It comes down to the never-ending question. Do you want to maximize physiological adaptations or do you want to replicate race scenarios?

it's been my experience on long rides that if you get hungry that means you should have eaten a power bar 1/2 an hour ago, and you're about to hit the wall unless you get some sugar in your system immediately. sounds like you were just before this point, and your muscles had just ran out of glycogen, probably the thin air to some afffect aswell.

Trainning for longer rides can be hard, although they say trainning over 3 hours is useless, nothing gets your experience in the saddle better then actually going on a 4 or 5 hour once every two weeks. Didn't lance train like 6 hours a day or something when trainning for the tour.

RapDaddyo said:

My reading is that he is suggesting training rides that approximate the total work capacity even if the rides don't approximate the intensity. But, there's no reason such rides have to be at a constant power. What about a long series of L4 intervals with recovery durations that result in the target Kj of work?

4000Kj of L4 work is a ridiculously huge volume of L4 work. For me, for instance, that would be about 4 hours right at threshold. Scaling it up for stronger riders would probably still be something like 3 hours at threshold; I claim that if you can complete such a workout, you've grossly underestimated your FT.

Wouldn't constructing a training ride of event-specific difficulty be a good application of TSS? Rather than shooting for a total energy expenditure, shoot for the estimated number of Coggans. This would help make up for the likely lower intensity of training due to lack of "big day" motivation. Yet another good reason to have on-bike TSS data. I keep fantasizing a computer upgrade for my PowerTap will let me enter my FT...

kmavm said:

4000Kj of L4 work is a ridiculously huge volume of L4 work. For me, for instance, that would be about 4 hours right at threshold. Scaling it up for stronger riders would probably still be something like 3 hours at threshold; I claim that if you can complete such a workout, you've grossly underestimated your FT.

I was not suggesting a multi-hour ride constantly at L4 power. Rather, a series of L4 intervals plus recovery durations designed to equate to the target event's work (or TSS). I am contrasting that with a constant power ride of the same Kj or TSS. With a constant power ride at L2 or L3 you do not gain the adaptation benefits of the L4 intervals. As to whether the ability to do a series of L4 intervals that adds up to several hours at L4 means you have underestimated your FT, I disagree. It all depends on the duration and intensity of the recovery segments in between the high-intensity segments. For example, I could design a 5 hr ride with 20 min L4 intervals at 91%FT and 10 min recovery segments at 50%FT and the total ride NP is only 83%FT, with AP at 77%FT. If I want to reduce NP, I can just extend the recovery segments. I am still gaining the adaptation benefit of the L4 intervals.

RapDaddyo said:

I was not suggesting a multi-hour ride constantly at L4 power. Rather, a series of L4 intervals plus recovery durations designed to equate to the target event's work (or TSS). I am contrasting that with a constant power ride of the same Kj or TSS. With a constant power ride at L2 or L3 you do not gain the adaptation benefits of the L4 intervals. As to whether the ability to do a series of L4 intervals that adds up to several hours at L4 means you have underestimated your FT, I disagree. It all depends on the duration and intensity of the recovery segments in between the high-intensity segments. For example, I could design a 5 hr ride with 20 min L4 intervals at 91%FT and 10 min recovery segments at 50%FT and the total ride NP is only 83%FT, with AP at 77%FT. If I want to reduce NP, I can just extend the recovery segments. I am still gaining the adaptation benefit of the L4 intervals.

search the topica wattage list for posts from Dave Harris...he's a mtb'er who uses a powermeter for his 24 hour races and knows more about this than anyone out there.