Pacing for longer MTB events using IF



Finn0

New Member
Feb 2, 2015
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Hi everyone,

New here but have been stalking for a while. I'm hoping someone has access to some MTB race data and can help with this.

Got a quick question regarding power specific to MTB 7hr enduro events. There's a series this year I'm entering which is run around various XCO courses which we lap for 7hrs. I recently did a 4hr event and was interested to find that my IF was much lower for the given exertion than what I experience on the roadie (low .7s vs a 4hr solid road ride might be mid to high .8s).

Interestingly if I do a flat out lap my avg power might be around 300 for 1/2hr on the MTB which is no great headache on the roadie at all. The NP is actually lower than the AP, for a quick lap, which did my head in a little as I was expecting the large surges on the MTB to spike the NP. The instantaneous power seems absurdly high, up around 1800w for a couple of seconds.

So, I'm wondering a few things, is there some specific type of training on the roadie (as the MTB kills me for time) that I can be doing to help my MTB power? and, for pacing purposes, is there an IF that I should aim for during a 7hr event?

Thanks
Finno
 
When I did my stint of endurance MTB I didn't use power on my MTB, but did on the road. I knew from looking at a power profile of a previous winner of my key event, that to acomplish the goal I had for myself I would need to have the ability to normalize 300 watts for upwards of 7hrs. So when on my road bike and in hilly conditions I would just hammer the hills up, recover down and try to keep my NP over 300. I think the longest ride I did this way was 5.5hrs. On the trainer or flatter roads I would typically average 260-280 for that duration as 300 would be a huge lump.

To be honest most of my training was just riding long and hard on the MTB, I did a couple 7hr rides. Staying focused on nutrition and bike handling. The biggest challenge I had was bike control once I was insanely fatigued.

I actually decided to end my racing "career" for family just prior to my devue event, but still completed the event. They changed up the course a bit and conditions made a longer day than anyone expected (7hrs 50 for me). I am sure I didn't normalize 300 for that duration or even the 7hr duration. The first 2hrs was a full xc effort and I crashed a ton in hrs 2-4. I regrouped and passed a few guys who faded and finished without a single nutritional setback. My goal was a top 10, I placed 11th, but with my mind not really being 100% committed and all the crashing I was fairly happy with the result.

Not really an IF, but it is an idea of my short experiance in endurance xc. For perspective my weight was 172lbs and my FTP recorded a month or so prior was 360
 
1800 watts seems a bit suspect to me BTW. I am not saying that it isn't the case, but my highest output during a road sprint was 1600. I would have guessed my hardest efforts on a MTB would have been not much more than 1200 as most really high watt efforts are a high cadence full out smashing effort, as opposed to the low cadence high torque while maximizing traction on the MTB.

Just an observation.
 
Finn0 said:
Got a quick question regarding power specific to MTB 7hr enduro events. There's a series this year I'm entering which is run around various XCO courses which we lap for 7hrs. I recently did a 4hr event and was interested to find that my IF was much lower for the given exertion than what I experience on the roadie (low .7s vs a 4hr solid road ride might be mid to high .8s).

Interestingly if I do a flat out lap my avg power might be around 300 for 1/2hr on the MTB which is no great headache on the roadie at all. The NP is actually lower than the AP, for a quick lap, which did my head in a little as I was expecting the large surges on the MTB to spike the NP. The instantaneous power seems absurdly high, up around 1800w for a couple of seconds.

So, I'm wondering a few things, is there some specific type of training on the roadie (as the MTB kills me for time) that I can be doing to help my MTB power? and, for pacing purposes, is there an IF that I should aim for during a 7hr event?
I guess that you are learning what I keep saying - IF and NP are not valid measures of anything.

Your specific issue with your road power being lower than your off road power many have more to do with the fact that your power profile is different for the 2 events. There is not much you can do about that. Off road you may spend more time at very low power that you cannot make it up during the high power portions (you would need to exceed your LT for longer than possible.)
 
An old Guy said:
I guess that you are learning what I keep saying - IF and NP are not valid measures of anything.
I see much hasn't changed, your still spewing BS all over these forums. This statetment is absolutely not true, Jeremiah Bishop relies very much on these parameters to dial in his efforts for endurance races and trust me it works quite well for him!

To the OP Bishop is a really good person to look at to get the answers to your question. He utilizes power and all of the theories that OG likes to hate with really no basis at all. Plus he is quite good at these endurance MTB events. His files/training approach is what I used.

Best of luck to you, these things are quite awesome, if I had the time to train properly for them and lived close to any suitable place to train I would be all over them. Just remember regardless of how well you train if you bonk, injure yourself, or bust your bike your screwed! The line between a fabulous outcome in these things and disasterous is very thin. I saw that first hand when I passed the 2013 winner at 75 miles in, he is an amazing athlete who just had a bad day, the line is thin.
 
bgoetz said:
I see much hasn't changed, your still spewing BS all over these forums. This statement is absolutely not true, Jeremiah Bishop relies very much on these parameters to dial in his efforts for endurance races and trust me it works quite well for him!

To the OP Bishop is a really good person to look at to get the answers to your question He utilizes power and all of the theories that OG likes to hate with really no basis at all. Plus he is quite good at these endurance MTB events. His files/training approach is what I used.
I am sorry. It is up to Andy Coggan to provide the basis for what NP, IF and the other concepts measure. He has made conflicting statements in his "published" material. He has fallen back to the statement that it is not science but a hobby for him and he does not need to provide support for his statements.

Andy Coggan did provide a list of about a dozen people who have proved that NP, IF and those other concepts measure nothing. So Andy Coggan knows that I am right.

Myth and lies have a difficult time working for anyone. But they provide a good basis for selling a product. (In fact NP, IF and all were designed to sell Training Peaks products. It says so on their site. But don't trust the site. An article there by Andy Coggan says that NP measures Lactate production, something that Andy Coggan says is a lie.)


I made a statement that is provable. I might as well give a proof. I guess anyone can do a constant 80% FTP for 2 hours. That is about 130 TSS. On the other hand it might be very difficult to do 0% for an hour downhill and then do a constant percentage of FTP (about 113% FTP) to get the same TSS and thus the same IF for the 2 hour period.
 
Just move along and allow this post to be useful for people. I learned quite some time ago with that the best approach for your BS is to not even "feed the pigeons" (yes I liken you to nothing more than a pigeon). My guess is Cogan and others came to the same conclusion sometime ago as well.

My suggestion is if you have issues start your own thread and leave those issues to that thread, you might gain a touch more credibility as opposed to taking ever opporitunity to derail every one else's thread.

The real sad part is that you have been doing this on a very regular basis for at least 4 years and all you continue to do is get ridiculed and laughed at. At some point after getting no traction for 4 years I would have guessed you would have gotten board. I actually thought you would have been out crushing 180 days of 300 TSS and dropping pros while riding tempo up mountains, but guess I was wrong.
 
bgoetz said:
Just move along and allow this post to be useful for people. My guess is Cogan and others came to the same conclusion sometime ago as well.

I actually thought you would have been out crushing 180 days of 300 TSS and dropping pros while riding tempo up mountains, but guess I was wrong.
Your misunderstanding of science is not my problem. Don't try to make it mine.

Andy Coggan made the claim that no one could handle 200TSS/day. I indicated it was easy and that I could do 300TSS/day. Andy Coggan seems to have left while we were working out what 300TSS/day meant. He seemed to think it was 90 days. He seemed to think that it was above 70% FTP. When I did not object, he left.

300TSS is not "crushing it" - 6 hours at 70%. For me 300TSS is 5 hours at 78%. Even I can handle 5 hour days at that effort for months at a time. But I do prefer "safe" roads. And if I am going to do it, I am going to be well paid.


It has been a long time since I rode hills with pros. One summer while I was on vacation with my family. I rode 100 miles every morning. Ran across a group West of Jackson Hole. Rode for 4 hours with them. Just tempo. Ran across them a couple days later. We did Trail Ridge Rd from the West. Just tempo. I was asked to join them for some repeats on Deer Creek Canyon Rd. I have never hurt so much. It was good that I had a job that paid better than riding a bicycle.
 
Yes the best approach to the BS lets not feed into it at all but sometimes situations become so out of hand that you just can't help yourself and you end up saying something you shouldn't have. I like to stay away from all types of different situations that involve all this negative energy but it's not easy.
 

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