Agree with both of you. I was also at camp and rode both days pretty easy, but was still pretty smashed after each ride. It is just a different kind of effort up there. My plan is to ignore all other riders, ride easy most of the time, adjusted tempo up the climbs, and then re-assess how I feel when I get to Powerline in. If then, I feel good, I will start ramping up the effort a little.
I inadvertently tested this in 2021 and 2022 respectively.
In ‘21 I generally rode to plan with a power meter but allowed myself to surge on St. Kevins and other early sections to keep up with what I believed to be faster groups on the road sections to Twin Lakes.
I thought I was absolutely flying to Twin Lakes in a massive peloton and felt good up Columbine. I classically imploded on Powerline and limped it in. I made my sub-9 goal, but only by 10 minutes.
In 2022 I just felt bad at the start, garbage night of sleep and some other factors where I ended up pacing first half slower. While I was behind my previous year times at nearly every part of the day up until Powerline, my pace from there to the finish was consistent and I came in faster than previous year with less fitness and generally feeling like I had an off day. I think my unintentional east pacing of the first half is what saved my sub-9 in the back half.
Everyone will tell you that you need to pace conservative and save it for the back half but this is extremely hard to do in the excitement of the day. It’s definitely the right way to go though for vast majority of AG athletes.
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How did your splits compare between those rides. For example, I generally see things like this.
- 2:00 (hours) to Pipeline
- 2:50 - 3:00 to Twin Lakes
- 4:30 - 4:45 to the top of Columbine
- Etc…
I’m especially curious about the opening climbs. How long did it take to ascend St. Kevins or get to the Carter aid station? How long did it take to get to the top of Sugarloaf between those years?
Do they check your ID at registration? Asking for a friend.
Yes. They do check.
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There’s not a spectacular difference in the times. I was 10 minutes behind for the first half, broke even around Carter, finished a few minutes ahead at the end.
There are many factors that this could be attributed to, most significantly the weather was cooler in the afternoon in 2022 than 2021. For me it feels more significant because in 2021 I was more motivated and fit overall, but had a classically terrible time up Powerline. Whereas in 2022 I felt like I was on a really mediocre day but cleaned Powerline and really didn’t hit the depths of suffering from then into the finish. Not a big difference in time, but a big difference in RPE and suffering.
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Tough call on the pacing and it’s something I tend to obsess over. I did 8:50 in 2021 going out pretty hot and pushing hard all day (as my power dropped). Similar approach in 2022, but had a mechanical and just bad execution and finished 9:24 after giving up too early. I never went so hard early to blow myself up, but stayed right on that edge. Survived Powerline inbound and still had decent legs on the road climb by the lake. If this was a TT, a more steady pacing would definitely make sense. For me, it’ was hugely beneficial to get with good groups to and from twin lakes. Maybe I would have been fine (and gotten good groups) pacing slower at the start, but I’m not sure I have the guts to try that intentionally. In 2020 (covid year), I tried the course solo at more flat/conservative power and was bleeding time (over an hour slower to the base on powerline inbound). That’s not to say a more steady pacing isn’t the right approach for me (or for many others) on race day, it’s just not how the majority of folks hit those times. Going into 2021, I did a bunch of strava stalking and found about 15 people who finished around sub 9 and were using power meters with weight similar to mine. None of them paced anywhere near flat across the entire race, the power was always biased to the first half of the race and then tailed off until the end. That doesn’t make it the right approach, but I do think you need to do that a little bit if you want to increase your chance of getting some free time from fast groups. The most interesting thing I found in my strava stalking was that the guys doing sub 8:30 were not going any faster out to twin lakes compared to the ~9 hour guys, they just faded less on Columbine and the balance of the race. My current mindset and pacing plan is still skewed towards going out hard and get out to twin lakes quickly and then settle in. May or may not be right, but that’s the plan. Here’s approx splits and power numbers based on my 2021 attempt (racing at around 167lbs and 305 sea level FTP).
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My guess is that if you could run a proper randomized trial that an even pacing strategy would be statistically better, but I agree that the vast majority of sub-9 finishers (and all finishers) fade in the second half. It’s extremely difficult not to. I think we’d almost all agree though that AG’ers shouldn’t deliberately try to smoke the first half.
Some possible exceptions would be if you are a strong rider starting in a later corral who is trying to link up with strong groups ahead of get out ahead of traffic. This makes intuitive sense to me and I’d always prefer to be with a strong group and ahead of as many walkers as possible… but I also feel like you’re playing with fire. Pure conjecture, but I’d bet this backfires about as often as it pays off.
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@tgarson Your times are surprisingly close! I mean there’s just a handful of minutes between most of the splits. <1% difference!!! It’s fascinating to have that gap in RPE and a tight result.
@grwoolf I’m obsessing 
. Thanks for sharing your cool pace graph! Your Strava findings match up with what I’ve been seeing. So I’m asking myself, is it just the nature of long races, or is something there?
I’m currently leaning towards a slightly stronger start. My main reasoning is that the cooler morning temps allows you to. Getting with potentially faster riders, and dealing with less traffic are secondary benefits.
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What does AG mean? Average Guy/Gal? Age Group?
Age Group.
I have been using it to differentiate between pros who are truly racing each other and need to react to moves, go for broke, etc.
In contrast, other than maybe the very last mile or two I never feel like I’m “racing” the other age group athletes at an event like Leadville. Instead, I feel like we’re on the same team and our true enemy is the clock, not each other. I want moves to cooperate, for people to take fair but reasonable pulls so that the group can stay together rather than have hero’s burn themselves out and then we’re one less rider.
Maybe others have a much more competitive outlook than I do, but the buckle cutoff times at Leadville make it feel unique to me in this regard in contrast to most other events.
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Looks good, but you must have a hell of an altitude adjusted FTP.
At an average elevation of around 11,000ft for Columbine the acclimatized available power is about 80% and the non-acclimatized is 77%. Assuming you are in Co based on username so will split the difference on the acclimatization, assuming that you would be wanting to ride a climb that long around .75 IF, to pace at 223W your sea level FTP would be 360W.
That’s monster so kudos, but breaking it down like that because I worry people will see those targets and think “that sounds reasonable” based off of their sea level norms without factoring in altitude plus intensity targets for a 8-12 hour event. I’m assuming you’re a really strong rider.
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Thanks for pointing this out. I was more concerned about the format than the true numbers which I’ll be refining in the days leading up to the race. I was using best bike split to get some numbers to target a finish time of 8 hours, not actually based on my true ftp. If I use my ftp and the accurate altitude adjustments at a .75 IF, my finish time falls somewhere in the 8:30 range. I’d like to think I’m a diesel at altitude - finished in 8:03 my last try so beating that is my goal. I may start with a more conservative approach at the start by taking ~5% power off on the climbs in my chart above and then ramp it up at power line and inbound from there if I’m feeling good. That being said I don’t have a 360 sea level ftp, although that’s a fun goal for the coming years!
Hopefully some people can use this chart and customize it with their numbers.
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8:03 is super fast! I didn’t think you meant that others should use your exact pacing or to try and call you out, just remarking that’s a plan for a really fast day.
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IF can be a bugger to figure out with up down races like Leadville.
My IF for Tahoe Trail was 0.65. My coach and I figured that it was a combo of mechanical and just having really great recovery on the downhills. Throwing down more power runs the risk of being too tired to manage the downhill. That’s a tough one to dial in.
I have read a lot of these, there are a lot of comments. My question for a first time Leadville’r is:
For those who have finished, what was your finishing time and your W/kg at that time.
I currently sit at 3.1 W/kg living at 1,000’ and want to know what time my numbers project in a ‘perfect world’
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What elevation do you live at? 3.1 W/kg at Leadville elevation would allow you to go about 9:30. 3.1 at sea level would be somewhere about 10:45.
I was about 3.3 living at 6500 ft and finished in 9:38 and 9:50.
Have you ridden any of the qualifiers? The best way to estimate your LT100 time is to estimate based on a qualifier time, and use the appropriate ratio to adjust for LT100. Eg this table is from a few years ago. I’m sure there’s an updated one around somewhere to accommodate any course changes.
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I am targeting 4.2 - 4.3 as my goal W/Kg (at sea level) but hard to tell when I’m going to start seeing my gains level out. I was new to any real cycling training in February of 2022 and spent 2022 on TR exclusively LV with an extra outdoor ride each week leading up to my goal events.
Thank you! Your info is super helpful! Thank you. I live at 1,000 and ride a lot at 6-8k on the weekends. My qualifier was not a good sample as I blew up 4.5 hrs in and couldn’t eat or drink and limped in (thank god, because i got the lottery win!)
Knowing your info, I probably will set a goal of 11 hrs for pace and see how I am feeling after the turn.
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