As a follow up to my last article on putting the “go fast when the race is slow” strategy into practice, I was asked by one of the guys to offer thoughts on how effective his own pacing strategy was in that race. Since there were a few additional lessons that came out of it, Gordo suggested a follow up post may be in order.

I’ve posted a similar speed versus power chart comparing this athlete (Greg’s) strategy with Gordo’s below.

While there is a difference in total power output between Gordo and Greg’s watts per kilogram (W/kg), if we were to look solely from 40K on, we see a pretty similar (quite effective) strategy for power distribution.

I suggest in my Know Your Enemy series that the rule of thumb for exceeding average watts is: go up one zone (about 10%) on climbs of more than 2% and go up two zones (about 20%) on climbs of more than 5%. On the Cali course there are four significant hills in the 2-5% range at kilometers 8.4, 52, 66 and one greater than 5% and kilometer 48 (shown by the red peak symbols on the chart).

“One zone up” would equate to 3.3W/kg for Greg and 3.7W/kg for Gordo (shown by the two horizontal lines on the chart). 3.7W/kg also coincides with “Two gears up” for Greg. Let’s take a look at how it played out relative to what I would define as the ideal (from an energy:speed perspective).

Looking at the chart, Greg hits dead on the “one gear up” line on rollers 2, 4 and 6. He hits the “two gear up” mark of 3.7W/kg on the steepest of the climbs, roller #3. He falls a little short on roller #5 and a long ways short on the first pitches out of transition.

Areas for Improvement
As mentioned, Greg didn’t go one gear up on the first set of hills. What was the cause of this: simply holding back early to save some energy or something else?

In looking at his file, heart rate was significantly elevated at the start of the bike (about 10bpm higher than his total bike average). This is a pretty common scenario when you look at race files and is partly due to the fact that we don’t get real time feedback on how hard we’re going during the swim, partly because a swim start is stressful and partly because most folks don’t appreciate just how hard the body has to work in T1 to shunt blood from the arms to the legs. Whatever the reason, the advice is the same — there is a significantly higher speed pay-off to increasing your HR by 10bpm on an early hill on the bike than there is increasing it by 10bpm to fight the water, the swimmers around you or to please the crowds by running hard through T1. By having to wait for the heart rate to settle in the early part of the bike you are giving up ground to those athletes who are able to hit it out of the gate and also significantly challenging your body’s ability to process calories early in the race.

By the time Greg was able to lift power to match his race average, the course was heading downhill and at this point Gordo backs way off to bank some energy/clear some lactate for the steeper pitches to come.

Finally, on the fifth significant pitch (the crest of the longest hill), Greg had to drop watts and recover a little mid-climb and wasn’t able to lift effort as the climb kicked. If you compare the recovery strategies on the descent after the steepest hill, Gordo backed off more than Greg (from 4.5 to 3.2 W/kg compared to 3.7 to 2.7 W/kg) and was recovered for the climb ahead. So, similar to the ‘”two gears up” strategy for the 5% climb, there is similar benefit to going two gears (about 20%) down on the descent; in Greg’s case dropping to 2W/kg — an easy output. In fact for the variable strategy to work, you have to realize that there is no free lunch and you’re going to have to “give those watts back” at some point. Best to do it when the terrain is helping you go fast!

I think I broke my own rule about going fast when the race is slow with the swim tip above. After all, the swim is the time when you’re going the slowest of all so maybe a better tip would be go fast when there isn’t a whole lot of gooey stuff around you, whether fast moving air or water.

Bottom line is you should put in the time to look at and analyze the course before you race it. You’ve worked hard to get the watts you have, use them to get the highest speed possible out of that particular course.

Train (and race) smart!