pacing strategy

Improving a three time ironman’s endurance sounds difficult, but that is exactly what my job is with Dave Simonson. He performed four critical power tests last week and you can see the results below:

Test results

Comments from Jesper Therkildsen:
When I look at Dave’s power profile I can see that his performance at 20min critical power is too low compared to his 5min critical power (CP). When I look at his 5min CP I would expect him to do 20Watts better in the 20min CP. Thus, the primary goal for Dave is to improve his power in long intervals. This goal is achieved by learning to control the pacing strategy and by increasing his physical performance at these challenges.

Dave will train 6 to 7 hours per week and have to work with intervals three times a week. There are three kinds of intervals that he will use: Short 3min intervals to build VO2max, repeated 6min bouts of high aerobic intensity and finally long 15min pacing control intervals.

By doing the intervals very frequently he has a good chance to get familiar with pacing strategy and that is especially important at his competition pace. Triathlon differs from regular cycling in that way that the pace is almost 100% controlled by the athlete. It is not about tactics at all. It’s a question about self control and physical performance. Power meters are very useful for long endurance competitions like ironman triathlons since it is possible to plan a pacing strategy based on your previous rides. I hope that Dave will improve his performance at long distance through better and more efficient pacing.

I expect that these intervals will increase his performance at 5 and 20min critical power (and his 112miles ironman avg. power.)