Pacing strategy for La Marmotte (cyclo with 4 mountains)

PaulMD

@pledac: Thanks for the file and numbers. At the moment I can't read your WKO file because I have version 2.0. But I will try to get 2.2 somehow next week.

That's a nice you ride you made. Very similair to La Marmotte. From where did you the last climb to Armentiere? From Le Freney d'Oisans or from Bourg d'Oisans?

You had a very stable pacing during all those climbs. How did the last climb felt? All out?

Your power numbers are very similar to mine. I have an FTP of 290 watts at 69 kg. And I hope to add an extra 10 watt to my FTP and to lose 1kg of bodyweight before La Marmotte. And I am aiming for a CTL of 80tss/day at the end of june. Unfortunately I can't see what time you needed for every climb. Do you know it?

@John: I definitely have a nutrition plan But I am getting sick when I have to think about it Last year my nutrition plan was one of the reasons I dehydrated. I was riding all year with isostar in my bottles because that was an easy route for some extra carbs. During La Marmotte I used the same concentration but due to the heat my isostar was to sweet. Drinking it made me feel more thirsty but also nauseous. This year I will ride with 3 bottles and one with 750ml of water. During La Marmotte I am going to eat/drink some maxim gels and when possible some cookies.

@John and Swampy: For the gearing I have made several calculations. First one was for buying my new bike. Triple or not. With the 30x27 I have a gearing that is 12% lighter than my old 34x27. That's 9.8km/hour at 70rpm and 8.4km/hour at 60rpm. Last year I had to ride 11.1km/hour to ride with 70rpms. I hope this is enough.
The math for 11% sections and 270 watt and 80kg (total package) is that I will go 9.4km/hour. Fortunately sections steeper than 11% for longer than 100m are rare in the French Alps. But I know it's not enough for steep sections of 14%. Then I have to do 300 watts and I will ride at a lousy 60rpms.
Hmmm, maybe I am going to look for a 28

@sergen: I will ride with a powertap sl 2.4. One of the big advantages of the powertap is that you can use a (road) triple.

@Alex: I will post my WKO file and stats here when I get back from my vacation that follows after La Mamotte.

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Porkyboy

Hi

All interesting stuff, if anyone's interested I'll post my stuff here too when I get back from La Marmotte, I'll also be posting a brief summary of the day here if anyone fancies a laugh. Success for me will be finishing!

Cheers to all.

PBUK

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pledac

-Armentiere from Le Freney d'Oisans
-Different times for the climbs of interest for you:
Croix de Fer: 1h43
Télégraphe: 53mn30
Galibier: 1h22mn

Watoni

It really depends on your fitness, for one, but I have found that riding tempo/SST for the climbs works if you have sufficient condition and are going for a PR.

The one time I really did not follow that advice was on a cyclo over Mt. Ventoux and I hit it from Bedoin to the top since I had never climbed the Ventoux before, was in very good condition and had a very long descent to recover.

I have never ridden a European cyclo with a PM and am debating whether to ride my events with one this year. As useful as a PM is for training rides and the ride post mortem, I found it distracting during my last event. I focused on numbers rather than just riding by feel. When you get tired, maintaining the watts will be much more difficult, but you need to keep riding within yourself and then give it everything on the final climb.

You may not be able to test the climbs where you are, but you can do long intervals in your target watt range and also test your nutrition in the heat. That, as much as anything, will be key. Also get there early to acclimate to the altitude. I did not do that in one ride in the Dolomites and spent almost four hours of a 6.5 hours ride at or above 90% of my maximum heart rate, although my watts would have been far below an IF of 0.9. I set a PR but ended up in the oxygen tent right after the finish ...

PaulMD

I have a shimano dura ace triple. I found out that the dura ace has a 92 BCD instead of the regular 74BCD for ultegra, 105, sora and bora. I can't find a chainring with less than 30 teeth and 92 BCD.

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PaulMD

Alex made a very good and informative model of La Marmotte.
Link: http://forum.slowtwitch.com/gforum.cgi?post=1808542

What I learned from it. With pacing the climbs at approx 250w and doing the other sections with < 200w it is possible for a 70kg rider to finish within 7.5h. My FTP is approx. the same as the virtual rider in the model Alex made: FTP 310w and bodyweight at 70kg. I am a little bit lighter (68.1kg this morning), my FTP is the same but I probably have less endurance/training years.

But an AP of 200w and an NP of 233w seems possible for 7.5hours. This year I did one long event of 6.5hours with AP of 170w but an NP of 237w.

So I will try to pace myself at PE and the fact that I can reach my goal with 250 watts uphill. When 240w feels easy I will do 250w. When 250w feels easy at the first climb I will stay at 250w because it's hard enough. At the Telegraph I will try to adjust my pacing when my PE is too high or too low but keep in mind that 250w is good also when it still feels easy. At the last 8kms of the galibier I can go harder when I can sustain the 250w. But I decrease my poweroutput when climbing the Telegraph feels heavy.

At the moment I can do 2 hour rides with 250 watts. It's not very hard.
But 3 hour rides at 250 watts are possible but hard at the end and the next day. I am doing now more L3 traning to get comfortable at riding at 250w. I feel the L4 work did boost my FTP but riding at an IF of 0.8 has become more difficult.

Now I am working on my nutrition plan. Why do I favor American products?
My nutrition plan is now based on: liquid intake, carb intake, electrolyte intake.
1.) I will have 2 or 3 bottle cages with a bottle. One with only water and one with a maltodextrine (fantomalt, no glucose) solution (50gram/liter).
2.) I can't get all the carbs from the faltomalt solution so I will get the rest from gels. I will try the hammernutrition because they have gels with maltodextrine (Last year I used maxim gels but they contain only glucose)
3.) I will use some hammernutrition endurolyte caps to get electrolytes because the fantomalt solution and the water will not contain electrolytes.

I will try to reach 75gram of carbs / hour and 900ml / hour when climbing, max 1000ml/hour. When it's cold I will try to drink less but eat the same. Because my daily routine is drinking coffee I think I need caffeine during the ride. So I will try get some caffeine (not too much) during the whole ride from some of the gels.

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john979

Alex;

This is great! Do you accept Paypal? Have you compared results to an actual file from the race? I have not done La Marmotte, but two years ago I did a training ride on a road called Skyline Drive in Virginia that I would love to compare the model to.

PaulMD

Quote:

Originally Posted by john979 Alex; This is great! Do you accept Paypal? Have you compared results to an actual file from the race? I have not done La Marmotte, but two years ago I did a training ride on a road called Skyline Drive in Virginia that I would love to compare the model to.

I see that I made a fault in my post above.
Alex made a pacing strategy for a 79kg rider with a FTP of 310w (the 2008 rider/virtual rider) and he used the powerfile from a 70kg rider who did La Marmotte in 7:04:52 (7:08:52)(2007 rider).

The 2007 rider (70kg) did the 4 climbs at
Glandon: AP 242 watts (section marked by Alex)
Telegraph: AP 252 watts (section marked by Alex)
Galibier: AP 241 watts (section marked by Alex)
Alpe d'Huez 263W (section marked by 2007 rider)

Total
AP 199W / NP 235W
Duration 7:04:52 (7:08:52)
175km (24.7km/h)

I am still curious what time the 2007 rider did for those climbs (sections marked by Alex) and where the climbs started according to the sections marked by Alex.

The virtual 2008 rider (79kg) pacing strategy has an estimated time of: 7:19 with a pacing AP of approx 250-255 watts on the long climbs.

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Steve_B

I have experienced similar things. I think that for the ride that you are planning to do, you need to find a balance between the two. I do not know what the exact balance is but what I have done in the past is 2:1 L4 to L3 (2 days L4 for every 1 day L3) when preparing for a 40K ITT, but perhaps 1:1 or 1.5:1 is better for your goal.

I like Hammer's HEED and Hammer Gel. I'm not going to say that they work better than other products, I like them mostly for their ingredients more than anything else. Some of their claims for other products seem a bit over the top.

I think caffeine is useful towards the end of the day. After 4-5 hours, if I stop for a coffee or maybe a Coke, the sugar and caffeine have me really flying for the next hour or so.

daveryanwyoming

Agreed on both counts. Hammer makes some good products and a much but not all of their philosophy rings true. I like their gel and buy it in bulk which beats the heck out of lots of sticky used gel packages in your pockets and have really come to prefer Heed over other drinks. I like their Recoverite as well.

I also like Cliff Shot Blocks as a semi solid food that is still easy to digest when the pace is hot. But for rides over 5 hours or so I really like some "real" food added to all the energy stuff. I mean something like a roast beef sandwich or cream cheese and jelly rolled up in a tortilla and sliced into bite sized rolls. The former for less intense long rides with breaks and the latter for long races where the pace doesn't back off too much and I'll do my eating on the bike. I also agree with Steve that some caffeine and sugar late in the ride is really nice.

-Dave

Steve_B

It seems to me to be a bit more common in Europe than in the States to eat "real" food on longer rides but I agree that being able to sink your teeth into something like bread and meat feel good after a series of Clif Bars and Hammer Gels (not that they are bad, but...).

Alex Simmons

Funny you should say that...

Paypal? Yes I do, I need to for coaching internationally.

For this pacing optimisation? No, well not yet! The question of commercialing it has been asked of me by several people already, which would indicate there is certainly some interest.

At this stage I think a nominal fee for re-couping some of the development time would be sufficient, since I would run the model as a service in the first instance and maybe someone else can incorporate it into software or an online solution. But I ain't the only one who's done this but perhaps mine just look nicer

Really I have done this for two reasons:
- sheer academic interest, I have been using some dormant brain cells that are loving the attention
- I want to find ways to help my athletes go faster

Model has been refined some more since that Marmotte one I posted. I'm going to re-run it and see what we get. I think <7:30 for the rider shown will be a challenge and will suggest we drop slightly to an IF~0.74.

At the same time, we are hoping to see his FTP and long duration MMP increase by then. We will know for sure when we next test. Not far away now.

But I am working on something else ever cooler than event optimiation (but a related topic), so I am on the lookout for power files for timed events with a detailed elevation profile and relatively benign conditions (or wind conditions that are known per segment). Also need total mass of bike+rider.

Profiling the course via the model would be an output and can be shared with providers of suitable files.

If a rider knows their CdA and Crr for the day of the event, that would be a bonus but is not essential if power and elevation data is accurate (and wind not too bad). They would become case study data points.

All data treated in confidence or can just be supplied as an anonymous file.

I don't want to say what it is though just yet.

Anyone intrerested?

I will acknowledge any help provided where this doesn't conflict with confidentiality.

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PaulMD

I now try to do it at a 1:1 ratio. My long distance power is my weakest link.
I will try to use the caffeine during the whole ride but start low and end a litle bit higher.
No but I believe in the maltodextrin. I only don't understand that they say that maltodextrin doesn't get high insulin levels and that that's reason of a steady glucose level in your blood with maltodextrin. But the GI (glycemic index) of maltodextrin is 130, compared to 100 of glucose. So the insuline response is larger for the maltodextrin.

I normally just eat solid food during rides. But for long/hard rides I prefer liquid food such as gels.
After the finish I will eat plenty of real food: pizza's, many pizza's. I think I will eat two of them while waiting for my girlfriend to finish. And after she finish we gonna eat more pizza's together.
Keep us informed, I am very curious.

Alex, I am always interested. But wonder what criteria you need for a file for optimal pacing up one hill. Is data of a climb usefull when I don't go all out? Or should it be a timetrial? This summer I go on vacation for 3 weeks to the alps and I hope to collect a lot of data from climbing and I don't have problems by sharing it and explain which climb started were. But just before La marmotte and just after la Marmotte I won't go all out... After my vacation I can try to measure my CdA and Crr in climbing position (I still don't have my new bike build up, my LBS cracked my new fork while cutting it and the 3T funda is not available without a frame).

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Alex Simmons

OK, here are some of the criteria that spring to mind:

Suitable datasets would:

- be from a time trial or similar timed effort ride where it was an attempt at minimising the duration of ride for the given conditions on the day (course, environmental, rider's physiological abilities).

- include a file with power, speed & time data from a calibrated and zeroed power meter

- provide either a detailed elevation profile of the course, or a rough profile but with known elevation points along the way (from say google earth)

- include details on weather conditions at the time of the ride: temperature, barometric pressure, humidity

- include details of the rider:
- mass of bike & rider for the ride
- an estimate of rider's FTP & MAP if known
- preferably include estimates for CdA & Crr for the ride but this is not essential.

- preferably be from rides where wind conditions were no more than light/moderate, or wind direction and speed relative to rider was known

If in doubt, send me timed event ride power files with a few explanation notes and I'll see if the data set is sufficient for my needs.

Thanks!

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