Tuesday, October 16, 2007

Running Race Analysis


Here you can see a WKO+ running file for one of the triathlete's I coach. What you see is a red heart rate graph and a blue speed graph for a stand-alone half marathon (i.e., not part of a triathlon). He did what nearly all runners do--went out too fast thinking he could put time 'in the bank' for later on when he would slow down. You can see the blue line dropping until near the end as HR remains steady. What he actually did by going out so fast was to create enough acidosis-related fatigue that he was forced to slow down later. I find pacing one of the most difficult things there is to teach runners. I also learned from this file that his run FTP (functional threshold pace) was set too low so I bumped it up a little bit (faster pace) in his file. This race came at the end of the season so he was in good shape (high fitness) and well-rested (high form/low fatigue).

11 Comments:

At October 18, 2007 8:34 AM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

How do you get graded pace and Pa:HR to show up? I can't find it on the latest version of CyclingPeaks (v. 2.1). Are these features the rest of us don't have yet?

 
At October 18, 2007 1:59 PM , Blogger Joe Friel said...

I answered this once before in a previous comment but can't seem to find it now. Anyway, here's how to do it. Close Cycling Peaks/WKO+. Right click on the CP/WKO icon. Select 'properties.' In 'Shortcut' tab find 'Target' and at the end of the string in that field, after the last quotation mark, tap your space once and then type in /pwp. (Do not include a period.) Click on 'OK' at bottom. Then open CP/WKO. It should now provide you with this feature. If it doesn't then your version is too old. There will be a new version out soon which has this feature already included.

 
At October 18, 2007 5:30 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

It worked. Thanks for the tip! And thanks for everything else you do for us. This 48-year-old totally amateur female triathlete has learned an enormous amount from you.

 
At October 21, 2007 7:51 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Will a power meter for runners someday help in pacing?

 
At October 22, 2007 2:49 PM , Blogger Joe Friel said...

Yes, it will help a lot. Power is more precise than pace/velocity for running due to wind and hills. Just met in September with a company that is working on such a product.

 
At October 22, 2007 6:55 PM , Anonymous Anonymous said...

Interesting blog entry - I have a few questions on your post:
1) You commented that the Pa:HR was very good - what sort of ranges should one look at as good, below average, etc for running?
2) I noticed that the entry has a runningTSS score. Will this feature be released soon? If so, will a value be able to be calculated from data from the Polar RS800sd?

 
At October 23, 2007 10:04 AM , Blogger Joe Friel said...

1) 1.05 or less.
2) See my first comment/answer above. Yes, it will work with RS800sd.

 
At October 23, 2007 4:44 PM , Anonymous TMD said...

Thanks for the response Joe. I added the /pwp and it brought in Pw:HR and Pa:HR for existing data, but it did not add rTSS.

 
At October 24, 2007 6:30 AM , Blogger Joe Friel said...

rTSS will be in the next build coming out soon.

 
At December 2, 2007 3:03 PM , Blogger Steve Neal said...

Hello Joe,

I have an athlete who is using powertap...and polar...no consistent heart rate from powertap and she does a lot of cross training and has rs800 with gps.

My question is in regards to the Pw:Hr ratio...without the use of software.

I have the following data from both software...but don't know how you are calculating the %

first 10 min of TT Last 10 min of TT

251 watts 254 watts power

164 bpm 173 bpm heart rate

Can I come up with your calculation with this data and how do you do it?

Thanks,

Steve

 
At December 3, 2007 7:18 PM , Blogger Joe Friel said...

Steve--pw:hr is found in this way...
1. For first half of ride divide normalized power by average HR (if you don't have norm use average)
2. For second half of ride divide norm/avg power by avg HR.
3. Subtract second half quotient from first half quotient.
4. Divide #3 by #1.

 

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