TT pacing according to ftp

giannip said:

Hi

I know this as been asked before but I can't find the thread.

Should I create an interval an aim for the figures or just keep an eye in the normal mode ?

I know an interval mode one can view the AP but that would mean having to "guess" my proximity to my NP value...

or am I on the wrong track ?

I'd guess there are a lot of different strategies here, but here's how I run my PT during TTs:

- Power in real time mode
- Speed showing average speed
- Distance not time displayed

All in interval mode. I start an interval as soon as I'm on the start line and the holder has me securely, so 10 seconds to a minute before my start. Time doesn't start accumulating until my wheels spin. I have the interval mode displayed so I don't see any data related to my warmup. I try to start a new interval just after crossing the finish line but sometimes I forget for a minute or two, no problem it's easy to see where the TT ended by looking at the power curve in WKO+.

Time is my goal but power is my gauge, average speed at the turnaround or along the way tells me whether I'm on target and distance tells me how far I have to go and when I'm nearing the turnaround or finish.

-Dave
P.S. And don't go out too hard. I know you've heard that a hundred times, but I'm talking about the first 10 seconds as well as the first five minutes. My first few TTs this year were really dissapointing relative to my normal 20 minute L4 training intervals. I couldn't race close to my normal training. So I spent a few workouts doing mock TT starts for just 5 minutes each and analyzed the data, especially the first 20 to 30 seconds. Turns out just those first few seconds of out of the saddle accelleration were killing me. I've gone to just a couple of pedal strokes out of the saddle in an easy big ring gear and immediately sitting down and getting into the aero bars. I spin the gears up one by one and take a bit longer to hit race pace. The difference is amazing, I have no trouble holding to 95% of FTP for the first 5 minutes and then settling into FTP or above depending on the course length. My TTs this season haven't been very long, but I'll be putting the slow start method to the test this weekend in a 40 km TT. Anyway if you're having trouble hitting your normal power in TTs from a standing start you might want to do some mock TT starts using different accelleration approaches and see what works best for you.

Ive been using two strategies this summer. One is for long time trials and the other is for the short TT's I have been doing lately (8 to 12 miles).

Strategy one is for a 40k TT of which I have only done one this year. PT set-up was:
-interval mode.
-Watts, Speed, HR in real time.
-Display on 5 to 9 sec averaging.

Now let me explain a few things. First is I think for a long time trial this averaging is too fast because the power figure goes up and down quite quickly. After the 40k I have decided in the future to do two things:

1. Set averaging to 30 sec on display for wattage
2. Go on perceived exertion and maintain speed more than maintain wattage.

and

3. Use wattage more like a rev limiter and conversely if your getting lazy, but dont chase wattage!! Its tires me out on these long TT's. I call them micro-accelerations.
4. When looking at wattage if its not at your target, dont quickly accelerate or deccelerate.

Also it is very important in the longer runs to know the end of the course so you know when to lay the hammer down without having to switch display from HR to Distance. Pick a landmark and watch for it.

My next strategy is quite different though it looks the same. It requires some familiarity with the course to be effective as well as a good understanding of your PE vs. wattage.

The display again is:
-Interval mode.
-Wattage, Speed, HR in realtime.
-will switch to time near end if I know previous times or course record.

I have been experimenting with going on PE as opposed to watts and my most important thing I look at is Speed. Especially in the short ones (8 miles). The 12 milers I still use wattage again as a Rev Limiter, but I dont slow down if the wattage is above FTP unless its a long grade (false flat) and is early in the course. Also, more as a side note I could go without a HR strap because in a 17 to 20 minute TT I personally dont think HR is too important (if you know your body). In fact I forgot it at one 8-mile event and set the 2nd fastest time on the course my first try.

When HR is important in short TT's is in the first 2 miles where you dont want to max out by accident. Maybe some can do it, but the one time I hit max HR the first 1 mile in a hilly TT I almost blew up the last 3 miles (still got 2nd that day).

If I did that course again, Id for sure watch my HR like a hawk the first 3 miles and not let it go above threshold.

HOpe this helps and ask away if I am muddy on anything.

Ray

Let me also add that what I think is MOST important is how you disect and use your data from previous TT's to plan for the next one. Thats where the real advantage of power comes in. But dont tell anyone.......

If I could, let me echo daveryanwyoming on his TT advice. While I've never raced a TT (I'm an expert class mountain biker), I was having a tough time during my LT intervals and measuring my FTP. I was very inconsistent and at times seemed to be regressing.

What I've found is I was going out way too hard in the first minute. It would seem that little amount of time, 100-105 percent of FTP, wouldn't hurt, but it was. I've adjusted and like daveryanwyoming said, going out much easier and gradually settling into FTP pace or a touch above is the ticket.

For the past month, I've had my best FTP numbers (236 watts / 58.6 kilos = coveted 4.03 power to weight) and my best FTP training month ever. Last month, my FTP was 228 at the same weight.

This is where having a power meter makes all the difference. I wouldn't have picked up on this if I was relying strictly on heart rate or RPE.

--Dean

daveryanwyoming said:

P.S. And don't go out too hard. I know you've heard that a hundred times, but I'm talking about the first 10 seconds as well as the first five minutes. My first few TTs this year were really dissapointing relative to my normal 20 minute L4 training intervals. I couldn't race close to my normal training. So I spent a few workouts doing mock TT starts for just 5 minutes each and analyzed the data, especially the first 20 to 30 seconds. Turns out just those first few seconds of out of the saddle accelleration were killing me. I've gone to just a couple of pedal strokes out of the saddle in an easy big ring gear and immediately sitting down and getting into the aero bars. I spin the gears up one by one and take a bit longer to hit race pace. The difference is amazing, I have no trouble holding to 95% of FTP for the first 5 minutes and then settling into FTP or above depending on the course length. My TTs this season haven't been very long, but I'll be putting the slow start method to the test this weekend in a 40 km TT. Anyway if you're having trouble hitting your normal power in TTs from a standing start you might want to do some mock TT starts using different accelleration approaches and see what works best for you.

It's my understanding that in plenty of situations (especially shorter TTs) it makes sense to kick it with some neuromuscular power to get up to your target speed off the start line. If you keep the effort up for only 10s, the 30s rolling average shouldn't look too bad and there won't be a high metabolic cost. Thoughts?

daveryanwyoming said:

P.S. And don't go out too hard. I know you've heard that a hundred times, but I'm talking about the first 10 seconds as well as the first five minutes. My first few TTs this year were really dissapointing relative to my normal 20 minute L4 training intervals. I couldn't race close to my normal training. So I spent a few workouts doing mock TT starts for just 5 minutes each and analyzed the data, especially the first 20 to 30 seconds. Turns out just those first few seconds of out of the saddle accelleration were killing me. I've gone to just a couple of pedal strokes out of the saddle in an easy big ring gear and immediately sitting down and getting into the aero bars. I spin the gears up one by one and take a bit longer to hit race pace. The difference is amazing, I have no trouble holding to 95% of FTP for the first 5 minutes and then settling into FTP or above depending on the course length. My TTs this season haven't been very long, but I'll be putting the slow start method to the test this weekend in a 40 km TT. Anyway if you're having trouble hitting your normal power in TTs from a standing start you might want to do some mock TT starts using different accelleration approaches and see what works best for you.

Also, it sounds like you aren't warming up enough if you are only holding 95%FTP at the start of your TTs. Assuming a flat, wind free course, so we can use AP not NP, you want to be banging on 100% the whole way. How do you warm up? I have found a longer (40-90 minutes) sub-maximal warmup (not over FTP for more than a tiny bit) gives me the best results. I got this idea from notes to an Allen Lim lecture and it has worked well. What is the difference like between your warmups in training and racing?

I do agree it's a good idea to be in the aero bars early. This is true if you start hard or slow.

Roadie_scum said:

It's my understanding that in plenty of situations (especially shorter TTs) it makes sense to kick it with some neuromuscular power to get up to your target speed off the start line. If you keep the effort up for only 10s, the 30s rolling average shouldn't look too bad and there won't be a high metabolic cost. Thoughts?

Agreed. Indeed the starting 20 seconds of a pursuit or prologue type effort is critical to success. Knowing when to turn off the afterburner takes some practice though.

Roadie_scum said:

It's my understanding that in plenty of situations (especially shorter TTs) it makes sense to kick it with some neuromuscular power to get up to your target speed off the start line. If you keep the effort up for only 10s, the 30s rolling average shouldn't look too bad and there won't be a high metabolic cost. Thoughts?

I try not to exceed 500 to 600 watts for about 10 seconds outof the saddle in a gear Ive prechosen by doing one or two practice starts on the course as part of warm-up and then sit down and work up to my target speed (given the grade of road and wind conditions at the start). This usually works out to 26 to 28 mph right off the bat. NOT sprinting like mad to this speed, but quickly, but smoothly working up to it and I too get on my aero bars as quick as I can.

Read my blog if you care. SOme of the last entries have all been time trials and I talk a bit about how I thought my way through them.

Roadie_scum said:

... Assuming a flat, wind free course, so we can use AP not NP, you want to be banging on 100% the whole way.

I haven't been lucky enough to find one of those yet 🙂

Your point about a longer warmup is good, thanks. I arrived earlier than usual for this morning's TT and got a full 40 minutes of warmup including two 5 minute FTP blocks and a couple of 1 minute high L5 efforts. I used the slow start I've been working on and got right into the aero bars but it felt so good I bumped right into and a bit beyond my current FTP estimates. I attributed that to racing 1500 feet below where I live and a pretty good taper for this race. I hadn't considered the possibility that a little more thorough warmup may have allowed me to go harder sooner and still feel good.

I faded more than I'd hoped near the end, but that's partly due to the freaky weather. An isolated storm rolled in about midway through the race. I pushed a 3/4 headwind out expecting the reverse coming in. No luck, the rain started near the turnaround, the wind turned around and we all got nailed by huge wind gusts for the last eight miles or so. It wasn't a huge turnout so pretty much everybody but the juniors that raced first experienced the same weather turnaround, but it really messed with everybody's pacing. The course ran right next to an airport so I checked the weather data for today:

Quoted post said:

18 Aug 11:56(end of race).... 28(wind speed) 40(gusts) WSW(direction)...Rain...
18 Aug 10:56(I started 10:58) ... 9 0 E ...Few Clouds

Those 40 mph gusts nearly knocked my disk out from under me and I quickly gave up on the aero bars and hung on to the drops for dear life. Not great for speed, but everyone else dealt with similar conditions, just one of those things.

Anyway, I have to figure out if the second half power drop was pacing, mental focus or just dealing with the freaky weather. Still I managed to set a PB for a 40 Km TT(58:31) win the master's B race and ride the second fastest masters time overall(all age groups) so I'm not complaining. Got some gas money, but couldn't come home with a state medal since I don't live in Montana. Oh well.... Guess I gotta get off my duff and promote a Wyoming state TT championship next year 🙂

I definitely liked the longer warmup though, thanks for the advice.
-Dave
P.S. Back when I raced pursuit on the track a good standing start was key to getting up to race speed. Maybe that's why I was overamping the start on my longer TTs but having the ability to disect the power data for the first minute or so was really key to making me see that I was opening an hour long FTP effort by burning a pretty big match.

daveryanwyoming said:

I haven't been lucky enough to find one of those yet 🙂

Your point about a longer warmup is good, thanks. I arrived earlier than usual for this morning's TT and got a full 40 minutes of warmup including two 5 minute FTP blocks and a couple of 1 minute high L5 efforts. I used the slow start I've been working on and got right into the aero bars but it felt so good I bumped right into and a bit beyond my current FTP estimates. I attributed that to racing 1500 feet below where I live and a pretty good taper for this race. I hadn't considered the possibility that a little more thorough warmup may have allowed me to go harder sooner and still feel good.

I faded more than I'd hoped near the end, but that's partly due to the freaky weather. An isolated storm rolled in about midway through the race. I pushed a 3/4 headwind out expecting the reverse coming in. No luck, the rain started near the turnaround, the wind turned around and we all got nailed by huge wind gusts for the last eight miles or so. It wasn't a huge turnout so pretty much everybody but the juniors that raced first experienced the same weather turnaround, but it really messed with everybody's pacing. The course ran right next to an airport so I checked the weather data for today: Those 40 mph gusts nearly knocked my disk out from under me and I quickly gave up on the aero bars and hung on to the drops for dear life. Not great for speed, but everyone else dealt with similar conditions, just one of those things.

Anyway, I have to figure out if the second half power drop was pacing, mental focus or just dealing with the freaky weather. Still I managed to set a PB for a 40 Km TT(58:31) win the master's B race and ride the second fastest masters time overall(all age groups) so I'm not complaining. Got some gas money, but couldn't come home with a state medal since I don't live in Montana. Oh well.... Guess I gotta get off my duff and promote a Wyoming state TT championship next year 🙂

I definitely liked the longer warmup though, thanks for the advice.
-Dave
P.S. Back when I raced pursuit on the track a good standing start was key to getting up to race speed. Maybe that's why I was overamping the start on my longer TTs but having the ability to disect the power data for the first minute or so was really key to making me see that I was opening an hour long FTP effort by burning a pretty big match.

congrats Dave sounds like you made the best of some tough conditions!

The overall discussion is interesting ... I have an SRM on my TT bike and have found that looking at it past the 1st 2-3 min or so is counterproductive. The roads here are perhaps not horribly hill but there's hardly a darn piece of flat road or even steady road gradient much longer than 500-700m. IOW, you can never *really* get into a proper gear/cadence and focus on that. Real-time power on the SRM is just all over the place and I quickly found was close to useless for pacing. I can trust the first digit and that's about it!

Now if I could select the SRM display update rate to something pretty long or even fix the darned thing into avg. power mode ... I suppose I'd probably use it. But as it is, it's not of much use except to keep an eye on that 1st few minutes.

Actually the past two seasons I've stopped even doing that and rely totally on PE wrt. power. Early in the season, I will tend to overcook a start or two but not badly ... my *trick* :

... keep my cadence over 100 rpm the first few minutes ... or about one gear lighter than normal. ....

(this is on TT's of 20-50k).

i'm most comfortable around 90. At 100rpm I can produce decent power but am highly unlikely to make the ole "L5 instead of L4" starting mistake.

A very simple thing but it works for me.

Over the first 10-15 seconds I semi-sprint at 600-700W, doesn't seem to cost me much of anything and drop into the aero position right afterwards.

That all being said, I honestly wish I could fix/adjust the SRM power display and try and get some use o/o it! This is probably another reason why I tend to do my key structured work on the Computrainer. There I religiously monitor average power for my intervals.

daveryanwyoming said:

I haven't been lucky enough to find one of those yet 🙂

Your point about a longer warmup is good, thanks. I arrived earlier than usual for this morning's TT and got a full 40 minutes of warmup including two 5 minute FTP blocks and a couple of 1 minute high L5 efforts. I used the slow start I've been working on and got right into the aero bars but it felt so good I bumped right into and a bit beyond my current FTP estimates. I attributed that to racing 1500 feet below where I live and a pretty good taper for this race. I hadn't considered the possibility that a little more thorough warmup may have allowed me to go harder sooner and still feel good.

I faded more than I'd hoped near the end, but that's partly due to the freaky weather. An isolated storm rolled in about midway through the race. I pushed a 3/4 headwind out expecting the reverse coming in. No luck, the rain started near the turnaround, the wind turned around and we all got nailed by huge wind gusts for the last eight miles or so. It wasn't a huge turnout so pretty much everybody but the juniors that raced first experienced the same weather turnaround, but it really messed with everybody's pacing. The course ran right next to an airport so I checked the weather data for today: Those 40 mph gusts nearly knocked my disk out from under me and I quickly gave up on the aero bars and hung on to the drops for dear life. Not great for speed, but everyone else dealt with similar conditions, just one of those things.

Anyway, I have to figure out if the second half power drop was pacing, mental focus or just dealing with the freaky weather. Still I managed to set a PB for a 40 Km TT(58:31) win the master's B race and ride the second fastest masters time overall(all age groups) so I'm not complaining. Got some gas money, but couldn't come home with a state medal since I don't live in Montana. Oh well.... Guess I gotta get off my duff and promote a Wyoming state TT championship next year 🙂

I definitely liked the longer warmup though, thanks for the advice.
-Dave
P.S. Back when I raced pursuit on the track a good standing start was key to getting up to race speed. Maybe that's why I was overamping the start on my longer TTs but having the ability to disect the power data for the first minute or so was really key to making me see that I was opening an hour long FTP effort by burning a pretty big match.

Nice work mate! Glad the longer warmup worked out for you.

Thanks everyone.

I won't be using TT bars..I don't own a pair as I don't reallu do that many TTs (maybe 3 a year) 😄 so we'll see what happens.

giannip said:

Thanks everyone.

I won't be using TT bars..I don't own a pair as I don't reallu do that many TTs (maybe 3 a year) 😄 so we'll see what happens.

TT bars are by far the largest speed improvement you can buy, even the cheap ones. When you do only one TT a year, you should buy one! You gonna like TTs because you get a lot of speed with such a small tweak.

PaulMD said:

TT bars are by far the largest speed improvement you can buy, even the cheap ones. When you do only one TT a year, you should buy one! You gonna like TTs because you get a lot of speed with such a small tweak.

I Agree, lot's of it! I Reckon it might be over 45secs on 10km tt when correctly fitted. Atleast for me it is. And it's more comfy also.

I know, I have been mulling over the TT bars but i have carbon bars and don't really feel comfourtable attaching TT bars on to them.