I want to do a race of 50km, Pistoia-Abetone in italy (i'm italian guy), the route isn't flat, in this race the start point is at 65m slm and the end at 1388m slm, in 50km there is 1830m D+ (1830m climb on 50km race),
usually my training is based on Power from my stryd, my question is... for this race is a good thing to do the FTP TEST 3' and 12' MAX EFFORT on hill route at about 5/6% gradient?
I understand you will be running a 50km race. It will last much longer than 3’ and 12’. I don’t think any tests of 3’ and 12’ will be useful for your race.
I agree with doing the standard test. You prefer to do this instead of using stryd's CP? Is there a reason for doing this test rather than just using the estimate from stryd based on all of your training?
It’s a good question! I think there is portability to having an uphill CP and flat terrain CP. I’d recommend watching some of the webinars on YouTube from Andy Dubois. He has some good topics on using power in trail and ultra that cover exactly what you’re talking about and how to test for CP on uphills and use it in a race.
I want to do a race of 50km, Pistoia-Abetone in italy (i'm italian guy), the route isn't flat, in this race the start point is at 65m slm and the end at 1388m slm, in 50km there is 1830m D+ (1830m climb on 50km race),
usually my training is based on Power from my stryd, my question is... for this race is a good thing to do the FTP TEST 3' and 12' MAX EFFORT on hill route at about 5/6% gradient?
The STRYD pod measures the height difference (if there is any) and adds this value to the 'flat running power'. Together with the so called 'air power' it provides a summary of all that power values.
Power is power. 300W up-hill a certain slope, is 300W flat. But you are faster flat. That is the beauty of power and the whole idea to measure power.
So the critical power (CP) STRYD calculates, should be transferable to any uphill race, considering it is measured and calculated correctly. That is another discussion.
The Auto-CP equation is based on your best efforts over the moving 90 day window and pulls the contributing efforts in with a decay/depreciation. So if you've only done flat, normal surface efforts it might not be portable to uphill/downhill/trail.
Some individuals might have a translatable CP from flat terrain/smooth surface to uphill/trail but if there is an individual who is targeting a goal race on non-smooth surface/hills their Running Effectiveness could differ so it is very worthwhile to do a specific CP test on the surface you'll be racing on.
Has "data" worked for you in the past? Is this part of your long-term training methods? Or is this something new for you? Also, how many ultras have you done?
I ran a few 6h and 50km , so i have a good expirience , last year i ran a 50km with a lot of hill and downhill in 3h19’ only looking a Stryd power , latest test done in this year are all done in flat route , but done for a race flat or mixed in hill route, this is the first time i want to try a ultra only uphill , i think a little piece downhill … but for the most of the route 4/6% gradient uphill … so this time i would like to try the FTP test on hilly route to have a specific parameter for hill race
Strava's GAP can sometimes be reliable when looking back at a run to try and draw equivalencies to flat terrain, but the usefulness during run of GAP isn't close to actually using a more reliable metric like Watts from Stryd, especially if proper testing protocol is followed.
Again to OP, and from Andy Dubois for use of Power in trail and ultra racing. You'll be able to get flat running and hill running thresholds based on test results which will be useful during your 50k!
Ultra and Trail running coach Andy Dubois joined our For The Love Of Running series to talk all about how he suggests adapting training for specific unique c...
I swear by leveraging cp/ftp based training zones on the bike, but I don't particularly like using it while running, especially on technical trails. I only have the wrist generated measure from my coros so it isn't amazingly accurate anyway, but I find rpe/hr a far better metric to keep myself on a decent pace through ultras if you have some experience.
There's so many factors that make extrapolating your power curve and executing from that a gamble when we're looking at 4+ hours of effort, especially if we're talking over technical terrain. Obviously your experience may vary here, and you already use power to train, so I would do the tests and see how things are aligning on a few longer runs. No harm in doing the tests and seeing if it matches expectation. Far better to accidentally blow up on a training run, and you'll be able to gauge where your rpe/power should be from that
on flat ruote last test was @351 watt // 5.1watt/kg
aka less than 1% difference
Which is what we said earlier. It don't matter.
Interesting result. It seems to be that the uphill power is now measured and calculated quite good (at least up to 5%grade). That was not so the case in the past. It goes in the right direction.
What i forgot to mention to OP is, if you walk you can forget the power. Continue by effort until you run again. Stryd estimates a running power not a walking power!
This post was edited 8 minutes after it was posted.
Interesting result. It seems to be that the uphill power is now measured and calculated quite good (at least up to 5%grade). That was not so the case in the past. It goes in the right direction.
What i forgot to mention to OP is, if you walk you can forget the power. Continue by effort until you run again. Stryd estimates a running power not a walking power!
Stryd does walking power, too. You dont get leg spring stiffness or other running dynamics, but the power algo still works.
Stryd has done incline power well since their first pod in 2016-2017. I’ve been up several mountains with it. Care to elaborate on where you didn’t see incline power working?