Question for group on pacing. We have a local climb here. 5.2 miles long, 1700 feet up, consistent 6% the whole way up - so it’s really easy to lock on a power and hold it steady (NP and AP are usually within 3-4 whenever I ride it). It takes 25-30 minutes so I used it to do an ourdoor ride of Redoubt +2 (Threshold 7.7: 30-sec surge followed by 29-min at 98% then a 10-min recovery then repeat)
Based on my last FTP (which was 6 weeks ago and is likely ‘out of date’) my target was 311 watts. I decided to push the pace a bit and did the first interval/ascent at 334 watts (28 minutes). My legs felt pretty good so ended up pushing 347 watts (26-27 minutes) for the second interval/ascent.
Long story short, I’m wanting to do one ascent all out and am trying to figure out how many watts to shoot for since my legs should be fresher by not having that first interval. Should I be trying 10 watts higher than I did on the second lap this weekend? Or 20 watts? Something else?
- 5-9 watts
- 10-14 watts
- 15-19 watts
- 20-24 watts
- 25+ watts and see how long before you blow-up
I would start conservatively and see how it progresses.
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Some very strong numbers there.
All I can say is temper your expectations and don’t be too disappointed if your all out effort isn’t much better than your 347w effort. Some days you’re just invincible and that may have been one of those days.
I think you should go for a negative split and pin the first half at 347w.
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If you have a lot of fitness, there shouldn’t be much difference doing a single vs. doing 2x with a rest in between them. What’s the objective here? If you are looking for a power/time pr on that climb, then just try it starting 5 watts higher and adjusting from there as you see how you feel. A 30 minute effort should be directionally similar to your FTP (depending on how you define it). Certainly not more than 5% higher, otherwise your FTP is set wrong. Doing “all out” on a given climb can be fun and sometimes productive, but make sure you know why you are doing it. If it’s for fun, that’s fine. But if you have a workout/progression at a prescribed power target, blowing that number out of the water often does more harm than good if you are playing the long game.
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For fun. I’ve got no races or anything on my plate, currently just slowly building my FTP and having fun riding after taking a break from biking to do a couple running races this past spring. I’ve done the climb all out 5-10 times over the years. But it’s been 3 years since the last time I tried it. I pushed 368 watts/sub-25 min one one my my attempts in 2020 (same bike but different groupset and power meter). I’d like to see if I could match that power, but I’m probably a few blocks of training away from it still
If 347 felt pretty much all out then I would start with a target of 345-350 to start and then reassess after 7-10min or so. If you feel in control at that point then I would start to ramp up.
If you don’t care about whether you blow up or not then you could just target like 360 and see what happens.
Or…Just for the hell of it. Go in without power showing. Just give it and see what you end up doing. Could be a fun experiment if you’re in a part of your training where you have no immediate races or anything coming up.
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Funny enough, my PB for the climb came on a bike that I didn’t have a powermeter on. I just used RPE as well as Strava live segments and kept an eye on my ghost and ended up beating it by 20-30 seconds. Probably helped that I was on a lighter and more aero setup
You want to negative split the power, so I’d pick none of the above from your choices.
Start at 345 for 10 minutes, then adjust up or down based on RPE. If you feel good, go up a bit for 3-5 minutes and then make another adjustment. Don’t adjust too often, it will take a few minutes for the pain of the new effort to settle in
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I decided to give it a shot this morning. I’m coming off a cold where I took 1 week totally off the bike then after failing my first workout back, decided to do a week of just short zone 2. Finally starting to feel better again
Decided to shoot for 360 watts. Came through the half way point at 358 AP and 359 NP. Unfortunately fell off the pace and finished in 353 AP and 354. I’ll give it another crack at 360 watts later this fall when I’m fully back into the swing of training
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