micro-accelerations chasing power

My Time Trial season (at least the a races) is now done. Went really well btw. I used my Power Tap to pace my TT efforts. Look at HR occasionally, look at speed and use the wattage to make sure I am not going too hard and not fluffing off on the easy sections.

But one thing I noticed early on is when you pace with power your constantly letting up or pushing harder on the pedals to stay in the proper zone (i.e. ftp or % of ftp). So these constant micro-accelerations I call them I think lead to much, much greater fatigue in the legs. I have definately been faster on the out leg than in leg in every event, but I dont think everytime it was due to going too hard on the out leg (though once it was). Not 100% anyways and of course wind, rolling terrain, etc has played a part.

With some short "fun" 10 mile and uphill TT's starting up in two weeks I am thinking of taping over my wattage and going on PE, speed and HR. Then assesing afterwards if I put it on my ftp or not.

Anyone experience this or have any ideas?

In the end I hope to see if I have done enough training and racing to go it faster on PE than a hard number. There are other benefits like being able to use lighter wheelset for TT's (and a true disc wheel-not hvy covers).

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My feeling is that Power Tap systems may help more in training---not so much in racing, especially if a course is (highly variable wind/hills).

If the course is not pancake flat and without wind---that Power tap is probably unhelpful.

The TT course is an obstacle and it is an art form to be able to navagate over it in the lowest possible elapsed time. This may mean altering the power/PR depending upon early tail/head winds, hills, rollers, and the relative difficulty of the last third of the course (must never die in the last part).

A power tap system cannot help you with these judgments. Only routine practice, gut feelings and experience can.

If you are letting up or pushing harder to stay in your zone and finding it fatiguing, you are doing something wrong. You are chasing the averaging of watts of your PT display. Understand?

Adjust very smoothly, slowly.

Yes-that is the transition i made after the 2nd TT, to not mash or let up per se, just slowly up pressure or down, but its more of this up and down than if you didnt look at wattage at all. I dont know if its more fatiguing or not, but thats whay I started this thread to see what others think or have experienced.

yes-I understand the chasing of the avergaing of the watts.

Doctor.House I agree on a hilly and windy course-it really is hard to pace on watts as you go way over ftp on all of the rollers and then need to decide to recover or maximize wattage on the donwhills. The State TT championship last Sunday was like that. Everyone I talked to said they never felt like they got in a rythm or got on top of there gear. The other PT user I know (who beat me in the verall by 6 seconds) said he didnt really use wattage this time. but on a pancake flat courseor inot a stead headwind-by all means-wattage all the way.

Thanks,
Ray

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Do it and report back, I'd be curious to hear how it compared to continuously monitoring your power.

Actually, if the course is pancake flat with no wind, you could just gauge your effort based on speed and there'd be no reason to use a power meter. That is, as long as you know your FTS (functional threshold speed)

I'd argue that using a power meter on that type of course is more important. If it's a high-priority TT and you've done your homework (analyzed course profile, looked at wind/weather forecast, ridden it a few times, etc.) then you should go into it with enough information to benefit from a power meter.

On a course like that, it's fastest to use a variable pacing strategy where you go harder on the uphills/headwinds and easier on the downhills/tailwinds. A power meter can really help in this regard, especially since your perceived exertion may be skewed due to the fact that you've got a number pinned on your back and rabbits to chase.

Plus, regardless of the course, a power meter can help restrain you from going out too hard; a common time-losing mistake. And finally, it can help you crescendo your effort over the last 5K to milk the most out of your body. So by the time you cross the line, you're totally spent with your tongue dragging on the ground while hacking up a lung!!

Don't you just love time trials?

Have you ever thought about just changing the "smoothing" of the PT display to 10 sec, or even up to the 30s setting?

I've got mine set at 5s right now and I think I'm going to change it to at least 10s for TTs.

I had set it to 5 because it was really jumpy before at 1 or 3 or whatever it was at. I chnaged it to 10s just now and will see how that goes.

As far as pacing without-well I (we) all did that before powertaps. In the State TT I know at least places 2,4,5 and 6th place did not use wattage (8th,10th did for sure). I dont know if 1st did or didnt, but thats at least 4 out of the top 10 going old school. But pacing with them does have a lot of advantages as well, like Uhl said to really put the hammer down the last 5k.

cPritch67-will do!!

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Actually, the pancake flat courses would be the more 'target rich environment' prone to breaking the sustainable pace by chasing the rabbits.

The variable, hilly, windy environments offer so many challenges--that you are very busy concentrating. The other racers are typically out-of-sight. You must concentrate on clearing each section efficiently and quickly.

I seriously doubt staring at a PT & PR monitor for feedback can help much. In fact--you might wreck off a hole or sharp curve.

But hey---- I don't earn commission on power tap sales.

So if you pace yourself using average power how do you take into account normalised power which is a better indicator of your performance on a course ?

I dont think power meters are that good for pacing in TTs unless "they" come up with some means of displaying normalised power. Its possible to have quite a large difference between average and normalised power depending on the course and conditions which effectively defeats any pacing strategy using average power.

Normalized power would be a horrendous method of pacing a TT, IMO. Especially since normalized power isn't much use to you under the 10-20 minute range. If you do your homework you should know the course well enough to know the speed you want to be doing during certain sections. If you have a power meter, and you've pre-ridden the course and done even more homework, you can reasonably easy gauge how much power you should be doing over each section (flat, or not). (normalized power would only be a way to look back at what you've done, not what you are doing).

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Agree, and pre-riding at a hard-to-all-out effort will also reveal the VI that should be expected for the route. That lets you choose an avg power target for the duration that is appropriately close to your maximum capability on the variable course (ie, NP).

Not sure I agree, here's a quote from my buddy who won the State Championship TT last weekend:

> I'd ridden the course on 2 other occasions & knew where the critical
> points were. After the first major hill at 9km I was down 7secs, but
> after the top of the last hill 10km later I was up 20secs. You see, I
> paced myself up those climbs with my SRM!!! I believe this was the
> difference between winning & losing. The other guys blew up on the first
> climb that came after only 11mins of racing.

This is becoming a common story - experienced TTrs using a PM with intelligence to pace the start and climbs so that they maximise their resources over the course. Indeed that's what Floyd did on his solo break last year in thr Tour de France. NP is not that critical to know en route if you break the course down to the critical points.

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For sure doing the same course over and over leads to faster and faster times (usually) without any signifcant increase in ftp. My coach already has mandated that I have to pre-ride the State TT course a week before next year!!!

My question still remains does anyone think 100's of small corrective accelerations to get back up to your target power more fatiguing than just going on PE and holding a constant speed.

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In other words, rehersals are the key, NOT the power meter!

Dah!

btw: Never use a doping machine as an example (Roid Landis was IVed)