TSS and Races

mortimer99

Just out of curosity, in a typical road race what TSS would one expect if in good form? This may be a question like "how high is up" but I was just curious.

Alex Simmons

Well I'd say it be an IF anywhere from 0.68 to 0.87 ish, square that, multiply by 100 and the number of hours and there you go. 46-76 TSS/hr.

The better your form, quite possibly the lower your TSS would be since you are, by defnition, not having to ride as hard as others. Or maybe you do if you drive a break.

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daveryanwyoming

I took a look at races over the last year and a half and Masters road races in the 2-3.5 hour range yielded somewhere between 120 and 230 TSS for the races themselves and then another 20-40 TSS if you include warmup and cooldown riding. Crits, time trials and circuit races were a lot lower. Pretty much what Alex said above with some variation for course, fitness relative to the competition, and how aggressively I was riding.

-Dave

Spunout

TSS 200 and IF .91 in 2h20minutes.

Over 30 minutes in zone 6, over 30 minutes in zone 1. Hard attacking circuit race 100km.

NJK

The 2 races i have done this season have both had IF .95 to .99 both races were rolling courses and lasted between 1hr40-2hrs. I didn't feel on the limit in either race so i might have a look at my FTP.

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holli

One more "might need to adjust my FTP" case over here. Just did my first race of the season on saturday. Time 1:42:49, AVG 278W, normalized power 324W, IF 1.046 and 187 TSS. Numbers don't look right to me since I wasn't dying or anything in that race.

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Spunout

The NP algorithm can spike the values on some occasions (large VI). Remember to zero torque before the race. Re-set your FTP to the peak 60min NP.

Your IF over 1:42 shows you that your FTP is probably under-reported.

holli

VI was 1.17 so that might cause bit too high NP watts. I'll adjust the FTP a little and see what happens in next race.

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acoggan

I'm not certain where this notion comes from, but I definitely wouldn't be looking to the VI in trying to determine whether the normalized power is believable or not. I say that because the two-dozen or so "NP buster" files that I've collected over the last few years don't have unusually high VI values.

marmatt

what things can one look for to determine if something is an NP buster or not ?

acoggan

An intensity factor of greater than 1.05 for ~1 h in an individual whose functional threshold power has been firmly established.

I suppose one could also formulate similar criteria for longer periods of time based on known performances of comparable duration (e.g., use power in a 50 mi TT to determine what is a reasonable IF for ~2 h) or perhaps by curve-fitting and extrapolation, but generally speaking such 'cut offs' would be harder to establish with certainty.

Watoni

On a somewhat different topic, any ideas about ultra events (obviously will depend on duration).

Yesterday I rode most of a very tough double century (hard to do with a CTL of about 30 and still being overweight).

TSS was 590, with the IF for the first 7.5 hours being .748. I then got violently ill at the lunch stop (vomited quite a few times) and then tried to continue. I threw up a few more times and then crawled over the backside of Mount Hamilton and Sierra Road at mile 161 before deciding finishing very late and worrying my wife to death was not worth it. So, the IF for the last 3.5 hours of riding was more like .685.

So, apart from realizing I need to ride more, lose weight and develop a better nutrition strategy (though when I am fit it seems not to matter much), what can I learn from the power data (this is my first even ridden with a Powertap)?

daveryanwyoming

Lot's of different definitions in terms of what makes up an "ultra" event, could be a double century, a 24 hour gruelathon or RAAM.

Last year I rode a couple that might qualify a run of the mill very long days, The Death Ride and LOTOJA. My TSS for those events was 444 (IF =0.7) and 515 (IF =.73) respectively. Not sure what that tells you 'cept they were pretty big days and average pacing was somewhere between L2 and L3. Markleeville was just for fun with a friend so I rarely got above Tempo on the climbs, stopped at most of the feeds and enjoyed the day. LOTOJA was a race so I climbed in mid L4, had some hard sections of L5 and L6, fed on the fly with food handed up at the feeds and had to chase back on when I needed to empty my bladder. So the overall stats look pretty similar and time was similar (9:06 for the markleeville, 9:42 for LOTOJA) but the events were quite different.
Any chance you tried to fuel a bit too much or dug too deep approaching the lunch stop. IOW, did you bring on your stomach issues with pacing or fueling problems? It's hard to digest more than 300-400 Calories per hour or much more than 25 to 30 ounces of liquid per hour. Sure you'll burn a lot more calories riding, but it's a deficit spending game and hopefully you're pacing far enough below your FTP that you can burn a relatively high percentage of fat and minimize the rate at which you burn your precious glycogen stores. Hammer has a pretty good discussion of fueling and hydration strategies for long events here: http://www.hammernutrition.com/za/HNT?PAGE=TRAININGTIPS

Sure, they're selling their own products, but there's still a lot of good info in those articles.

Hard to say what you'll learn from the power data for such a long event when you obviously ran into troubles. I'd start by zooming in on the major climbs or sections where you worked particularly hard for extended periods. Take a look at your power curves for those sections, how does your pacing for those sustained hard sections look relative to your current FTP estimates? How steady was your power during steady climbing? Were you digging too deep and did you fade on the climbs. All of those are clues to help you set FTP and training levels. If you were focused and breathing deeply on the climbs then it's a good bet those are at least SST efforts and can help you set training levels. If you faded badly on the climbs by starting at higher power and then struggling to finish it's a good bet you exceeded your FTP and that's a clue. I wouldn't put too much emphasis on the data following your meltdown, focus on the first half of the ride and see if you can learn something about your current abilities, how you should set training levels, and your pacing strategies.

Good luck,
-Dave

Watoni

I bet I contributed through poor nutrition strategy.

Sustained energy has worked for me in the past but I have not been riding and I could just not tolerate it yesterday. So, that left me low on calories and when I went for solid food at lunch I just got violently ill. That tends to dehydrate you a bit and make it harder to take in calories.

In terms of pushing myself, I rode the same as I always do in terms of perceived exertion and consciously tried not to push too hard, but a cold and not enough training will mercilessly expose you on an event like that.

I can get away with 6-8 hour granfondos in Europe, but events like these are a whole different ball of wax ...