XC Marathon Pacing

That’s a cool way to look at it, long events warrant staying under a threshold HR. That made me dig out a few examples, to contrast. Offered without comment, other that to say my HRMax is definitely accurate.


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Pulling this one back up as I’m planning for a ~100mi singletrack race with lots of short, punchy climbs - given a .gpx file of the route (provided by race organizer) and multiple .gpx files of different people riding it (some with, some without power). What tools can y’all think of for

  • splitting the course into climbs / analyzing each climb (length, elevation gained, max/avg gradient)
  • comparing efforts across files (speed, power) to compare my previous pacing and current pacing plan to other efforts

I used a Garmin on the track before, but the climbs it gave me weren’t very accurate as it combined some climbs with descents in-between and didn’t recognize other climbs at all, so looking for a more manual way to plan this.

Thanks in advance!

For my 100mi races I just follow the route with the profile displayed. I’ll look at others previous finish time files to get a general idea of what the duration each major climbs are (15 min vs 30+ min etc). Then I know if it’s not a major climb then it must be under 15 mins. This is helpful when I see on the route profile a climb is coming up.

Pacing in the beginning I try to keep each major climb in tempo zone depending how I’m feeling. After 4-5 hours though all that usually goes and the following climbs are whatever I can manage, which is usually z2.

It’s my experience that pacing climbs only really matter in the beginning half of the race. The later half of the race has so many compounding factors that you really just have to go off of feel.

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Do you need to know the nitty gritty of the climbs mid-race?

I’ve ridden a couple of times with the course loaded on my Garmin. The ClimbPro would pop up with the number of the climb (say 1/12 or whatever) which was useful to know. I could glance at how long the climb is, but typically I get that info pre-race and have an idea of at X and Y and Z km into the race is where the major climbs are. I find trying to read more than that from my bike computer doesn’t work for me and distracts me too much from the trail.

I just know that if it’s a punch I’ll try not to go over FTP, and if it’s more than a few minutes I don’t want to be over Sweet Spot (90%)

I like to keep the mind occupied :smiley:

Since my A races are more in the 10-12h range, I’ll probably knock that down a bit to Sweet Spot / Tempo respectively, but that’s how I was thinking about it as well.

Best I’ve found so far is Strava Pro and just go segment by segment, worst case I can just create more if a climb isn’t split out into a separate segment. Then I’ll just track manually how the top-placing folks have held their power in the last years and will deduce rough power targets from there.

Thanks!

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I’ve been racing XCM with a powermeter for the last 6 or 7 years. I have a pretty good understanding which watts I can produce given overall race distance and climbing characteristics. However, I also see quite clearly that those races where I ignored any “holding back” in the beginning and simply killed myself in the first climbs were the fastest. Those races where I really tried to start modestly were always the slowest. I guess it’s easier to push yourself when the gun goes off than making up for a slow start when fatigued in the later part of a race. I race 4-12h events. Holds true for me, with nuance, for all distances. And when racing for a top ranking you don’t have any choice anyway. At least over here XCM has become very XCO like, with extremely fast starts. You’ve gotta stay with the group.

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XCM is the prime environment for using a pm to pace but as mentioned you need to ignore it during critical phases. First 10-15 minutes of an XCM is an XC race. If you start at the very front you need to protect your place or people will overtake you and slow you down in hard to pass places. If you start behind you have no choice but to move up. It turns into a series of very hard efforts with rest intervals until you clear the traffic.
Once you settle in pm comes into play. Except,
very steep parts where you push as much as you need to just move. Cannot pace there, need to move. Or to stay with a group of riders before a wheel sucking section. You pay a bit to benefit later on.

I see great benefit from pacing when I am isolated. It is easy to make the mistake of pushing hard to catch some people.
Or when I am in control. On a long climb I am at the front and 4-5 people are hanging on. Better to keep pacing rather than pushing for the kill.

No. but it helps. If you know the race or studied the course it can save you from mistakes. Like hanging on for dear life before a flat section only to find out there is a 3 min climb beforehand. You will get dropped and isolated as a result. If you knew, you would back off.
Or knowing a single track steep climb is coming up. Instead of pacing you need to push to overtake everyone in sight.
Or there is a flat wheel sucking section coming up. Instead of descending safely you bomb it.

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Same experience I’ve had over the past years. Whenever I try to “really pace moderately” my overall time appears to be slower. It always sucks and feels the same in the end and pacing slowly just seems to delay the inevitable.

I think there’s a happy ground to go at your pace, but just ensure you don’t do anything stupid in the beginning hours. Not be conservative in the beginning, but maybe just a cap on power and HR.

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I personally just don’t pace XCO/XCM with power. It is all RPE.

For me the distance makes a bike difference.

For a 100km/60-65mile event I can definitely afford to push it on some early climbs knowing that I will be able to recover and still ride aggressively for the rest of the ride. This is something that I’ve worked on in training on similar distance rides. I’ve also tried turning off the power meter on a few of them and just riding by feel.

However once I get into 100 - 130 mile range I have to be more cautious as too much “enthusiasm” early on can make the back half a lot rougher. This may be longer than the average XC Marathon race, but more and more longer events are popping up. Leadville is an example of this where you really need to have something left in your legs come mile 80 and starting out too hard on the early climbs can be costly. I’ve tried to pace these by riding smooth and steady the first half, limiting bike spikes and time above threshold, and then starting to open things up at the half way point and emptying the tank the last 25%.

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I think there’s a happy ground to go at your pace, but just ensure you don’t do anything stupid in the beginning hours. Not be conservative in the beginning, but maybe just a cap on power and HR.

The way I deal with this is to go off hard enough to keep the top ten in sight, but not as hard as them. I’m notorious for blowing myself up, and do far better when reigning it in a tad. Well, it worked last year anyway, my first 6hr race is Sat 14th, so we’ll see if it works this year.

I personally just don’t pace XCO/XCM with power. It is all RPE.

I use my PM for 2 things; a) for ensuring I stay sub threshold on the climbs and b) to look at my overall race effort. I know the output I can sustain over 4-6 hours on the Turbo, so aim to repeat that IRL.

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Wow…all really good advise above! Nothing to add except in XCM’s or anything 4+ hours I pretty much ignore my computer for the first hour and pay attention to what the race is doing. If i do glance down because of a high RPE I look at HR to see how badly I’m blowing up and if its well into Z4/5 i try and tone it down.
My goal for the first hour of a XCM or similar gravel race is to try and make the first hour be a forgetful blur of chasing wheels and seeing whos fresh and fast and who’s not. Missing that key brake at the start can really blow any chance of doing ok even if drafting does not play a role, pacing off of others does. Aside from liquid calories i don’t even think fueling until that 1 hour hits.
Once that one hour mark hits, if convenient, i think first about fueling, then RPE, then when /where to settle in and maybe start to check the numbers if the course or racing dynamic permits.

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One other thought, I use “pacing” to also keep me honest.

As much as I don’t want NP to be ~290W / 90% (or whatever number) for the first hour of a 6-7hr race, I also want to make sure I’m keeping power as high as my target to make sure I’m working to my abilities.

For me I’ve worked out 0.75IF is very doable, so I don’t want my power to really be dipping much under that. Especially early when fresh.

I use IF for pacing during long races too. I discovered a few weeks ago that I can maintain .85 or so for a 4-hour race, so that is my new standard/focus.

Splitting that up over the race is really important though :slight_smile:

I like to let the fast guys ride away at the start of an XCM race and ride my all day pace. The only exception would be courses where the draft can play a big role (like Leadville).

I’m not a great technical rider and I have non-existent punchy power, so I can dig a hole quickly trying to hang with the leaders at the start of any MTB race. So, I’m slow, but I’m pretty strong and I tend to start catching folks after a couple hours and I really start rolling over people at 4+ hours. One downside of this approach is it can be tricky keeping track of what position you are in and even harder to know the gap. Unless someone is giving you splits/updates via electronic timing, you may not know your position until the end. I’ve rolled in 3rd thinking I might be riding for a top 10 and I’ve rolled in 9th while thinking I might be on the podium.

Basically, it’s a steady time trial for me with most XCM races. Gravel racing is a different animal where I’ll dig deep early to stay with the draft of a good group.

Splits below show my ideal pacing for a ~60 mile XCM race. First lap was the fastest, but I let a bunch of folks go up the trail early, I settled in on lap2, and was actually was a bit faster on lap 3 where most of my competition started slowing significantly.

I seem to be different or atleast have a different strategy. I’m sure it wouldn’t work every time…

If you’re at the sharp end aiming for podium or atleast towards the front, i’d recommend to go off like a rocket and try to get a gap, especially in the UK the start loop is usually a short track then filters in to singletrack so being on the front is the priority at any cost. Be Infront of that bottleneck and Infront of slower riders.

At the weekend just gone I did exactly that, went really hard for the first hour at the front and managed a few minutes lead… Then next 4-5 hours just settle in at as high as you can manage. Race at 100% RPE and only looking at power on high efforts like a steep climb looking at the amount it’s dropping every lap, because it will, that’s the nature of a long race. Finish the race empty knowing you got everything out of your self.

For example, 9 laps there was a particular 30-45 second steep climb, could do it 700watts the first few times then it progressively dropped to 500,450 etc.
Still pushing as hard as possible. RPE always at maximum.

I guess if you know your self then you’ll know your limits.

But on the flip side, I’m sure if a bunch of 2-5 riders went off the front way above my VO2 max power and my heart rate was maxed for 10minites I’d realise I’m not at the pointy end… I’d have to drop off and race my own race. It’s always at 100% RPE though.

I’m unsure what the marathon races are like in the US, SingleTrack or more open? Different strategies for different courses. Uk it’s usually 4 or 6 or 12 hours. This weekends was a 6.

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Do you have a Power file/Strava file you’re willing to share for this ride?

I’m not really at the pointy end, or at least definitely not going for any podium positions, but I’d like to move further up the field. I’m curious whether my racing is too conservative.

(Obviously, as you say it’s all horses for courses, but I’m still interested in terms of potential learnings)

Yeh sure - https://strava.app.link/4wkZ4hRg5pb

Although power is pretty useless to compare as it all depends on the course and the amount of coasting etc.

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My tactic is pretty much the same as grwoolf, Z3 everywhere staying close to below threshold on long climbs, let the leaders go, tire and then make up places - it works because I’m a low power cyclist with a lot of endurance. This weekend my coach encouraged me to use low cadence high power on short 20m lumps - I’ve been training 60rpm at Z3 intervals - which worked well, I was punching up climbs.

This is a confidence thing for me, I’d have previously backed off to high cadence lower watts afraid that I’d blow up at some point but that didn’t happen.

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congrats. impressive ride. I am scared of these long and flat races. Would be smoked right out the back.

Also looks like we can win stuff as the TR forum. Who knew :slight_smile:

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