LONGER
Your textbook pre-sportive breakfast of porridge, toast with jam and a shot of synapse-stimulating caffeine has you lining up ready and hungry to unleash a performance that’d have Team Sky rescinding its decision to exit the world’s greatest sport. The announcer sends you on your way, your inner chimp eaten by your inner lion as you pass packs of riders and hone in on bragging rights over your post-100-miler-pint. You. Are. A. Tiger. Or you were. Two hours later your bonking brow’s resting on your top tube and there’s seemingly insufficient oxygen on the whole planet to revive you. Welcome to the science and art of pacing.
Pacing, in its very basic form, is the distribution of energy during a ride. Your goal is to achieve your desired outcome, whether it’s time-, speed- or distance-based, without fatigue killing your dreams. Simple. Sadly not. The combination of terrain and fitness, not to mention ego, means generating peak pacing performance is built up through years of experience. Or you can fast-track via the beautifully paced words that follow…
Intensitymatters
“Core to pacing is knowing where you are at this moment,” says Daniel Healey, coach and former head of sport science at Tinkoff-Saxo. “That’s where your functional threshold power (FTP) comes in. It’s the maximum output you can hold for an hour. An hour test can be debilitating so we test riders over 20 minutes and reduce that figure by 5%.”
So if your FTP over 20 minutes is 250 watts (W), reduce that figure to 237.5W to determine your FTP. This information
is used to set training zones, designed to improve different parameters of fitness, be it speed or stamina, depending on the time of the season. But that intensity information’s also a useful pacing gauge because, like zones, pacing’s dependent on duration and effort. The problem is, despite power meters dropping in price, you’ll struggle to get change from a grand. Thankfully, these zones and pacing awareness are more accessible.
According to Professor Oliver Faude of Basel University, FTP correlates to an intensity that’s similar to your blood lactate threshold (LTHR), which you can measure via a heart rate monitor. Ride flat out for 30 minutes but, 10 minutes in, start your heart rate monitor. Find out your average heart rate for the next 20 minutes and that figure’s an approximation of your lactate threshold. “Once you have that figure, you can establish your zones and pacing guidelines,” says Healey. You can find out more about zones online but, as a snapshot, you could ride for many hours in the energy-efficient zone (60 to 70% of max heart rate), while the red-line zone (90 to 100%) will be minutes or even seconds.
Knowthyself
Knowing intensity and how your body responds is a great start to maximising your long rides or sportives. But unless you train solely on a turbo trainer, or ride in a vacuum, there are myriad other factors that affect your peak pacing profile, again beginning with you.
“Pacing’s influenced by your metabolic response, which varies from one rider to the next,” explains Professor of Sport Science Louis Passfield. “A rider who racks up lots of miles will create a lean, fat-burning machine as opposed to one who focuses on high-intensity, shorter efforts that favour a carbohydrate-heavy system.”
When it comes to pacing sportives, arguably the fatburning pedaller’s in a stronger pacing position. One of the more recent theories around pacing and metabolic response is FatMax, which is the intensity at which fat oxidation peaks. The theory goes that as near endless supplies of fat provide nine calories per gram rather than just four calories per gram of carbs, which maxes out at around 300-500g glycogen a rider depending on fitness, the higher a rider’s FatMax, the more they can preserve glycogen levels for hard parts of the race and so maintain more consistent pacing. From his research, Professor Asker Jeukendrup observed that the ‘best’ FatMax zone was around 60-63% VO2 max or around 75% of maximum heart rate. For less fit individuals, this dropped to 50% VO2 max.
Increasing the proportion of good fats and fasted training are two mooted methods to raise your FatMax. Just beware of fasted training as, while it’s hit the headlines for transforming Team Sky riders into endurance juggernauts, it can leave you feeling light-headed and mildly nauseous.
Muscle type also impacts pacing. A high prevalence of fast-twitch fibres means you can generate high but short power outputs, but punctuated by long periods of lower-pace riding. A high prevalence of slow-twitch means you’re better as a steady eddy. Crudely speaking, bulbous thighs and calves might mean fast-twitch; lean and sinewy slow-twitch.
Modelbehaviour
That’s a peek into the physiological window. But what about modelling; in other words, is there an ideal pacing template? ‘Even pacing’ would, on the face of it, seem the most efficient. There are no spikes in power to drain your glycogen reserves or burn your muscles. The problem is, in reality it’s the hardest pacing strategy to follow, whether you’re pacing by speed or a physiological parameter (such as power output or heart rate). You see, if the course features the odd hill or two, no matter the gradient, maintaining an even speed means a power profile packed with spikes; if you’re looking to maintain an even power/ HR profile, it means variable speed.
There’s also ‘negative splitting’, where you start slow and gradually increase speed. This is a possibility on pancake-flat sportives, but on hilly events, or events where hills are skewed early or late, it’s not feasible. It’s also psychologically tricky to avoid going hard from the off. Which brings us onto the most realistic and arguably the most efficient pacing model: the J-pattern.
“The J-shaped strategy is pretty efficient,” explains author of Cycling Science, Stephen Cheung. “You start out harder than your sustainable workload and then slow down for most of the event because of accumulated fatigue from the early effort. Then, when the finish line is closing in, you feel you can push hard for, say, the final quarter of the event, depending on distance.”
It’s a pacing strategy we’re all aware of and arguably comes down to motivation, which peaks at the start and finish, and then levels out when that finish line is miles away. So aim for the J-pattern but don’t neglect the minutiae…
Climbingmasterclass
“We spend a lot of time with timetriallists to examine pacing,” says exercise physiologist Jamie Pringle, “and when it’s a rolling course or you have steep hills, be it a TT or road race, in most cases it’s better to push harder on the uphills and ease off on the downhills. It’s the same when riding with or against a headwind.”
This sounds obvious but how many of you have approached a hill already blowing out of your chamois pad? The higher power output required for the hill then tips you over the edge (physiologically rather than topographically, we hope). Unless the downhill matches that between Conococha and Paramonga in Peru – reportedly 117km long, dropping from 4,095m to 16m, and all bike-worthy – you’ll not recover on the descent and kill your pacing strategy for the rest of the ride.
Cheung picks up the pacing baton and says, by way of an example, that if you’re attacking a five-minute hill and know that when you’re fresh you can hold 113% of your FTP for that period without cracking, knock off 5-10% and hit a five-minute hill
at, say, 105% of FTP during a long, fatiguing ride. Just remember that when it comes to pacing hills, the steeper they are, the more conservative you should be, partly because gravity chafes but a subsequent steep, short descent can again mean less recovery time.
Climbing and pacing is worthy of a separate article in its own right, especially when it comes to standing or sitting. We’ve mentioned it in the past, but it’s worth reiterating that research shows that road cyclists are more efficient when remaining seated until the gradient hits 10%. Tip over to 11% and standing becomes more efficient.
It’s not just on the climbs that position influences pacing efficiency. On the flats, how you sit can save you minutes over a sportive. The exact mix of positions throughout a ride is highly individual but don’t fall into the drops trap. Unless you’re highly trained, sitting on the drops for long periods leads to back pain and inconsistent pacing; in fact, it’s been shown that even pro riders only nestle into the drops for around 25% of a multi-stage ride.
Speedofthepack
Like the pros, you can generate a higher, more consistent pace by riding in a pack, something known to riders since time immemorial. Back in 1979, scientists studied wind resistance and power output in racing groups, measuring a 47% energy saving when riders followed at a rather improbable 0m, but still a healthy 27% at 2m back. Even at 3m, benefits have been noted.
More recent work by Bert Blocken, Professor of Physics at Eindhoven University, showed that you can even conserve energy and maintain better pacing if it’s your turn up front. “Sitting just 1cm behind realised energy saving benefits of 2-3% for the front rider,” Blocken explains. At that distance you’re bordering on morphing into a tandem but Blocken asserts it’s not totally unrealistic. “While more akin to track riding, on the road cyclists hide behind each other in a staggered fashion, so it’s not just one long train linked by just a centimetre. That said, a more real-world 15cm still sees a 1.5% conservation of energy.”
Or you can con yourself into riding faster. In 2011, Kevin Thompson, of the University of Canberra, asked a group of cyclists to do a 4km time-trial against an on-screen avatar that the riders thought was going at their best pace. In actual fact, it was 1% faster. Despite Thompson’s deception, the riders kept up with their virtual rival, cycling faster than they ever had before. “That showed us the body has an energy reserve of 2-5%,” Thompson says.
The method seems to work even when riders know they’re being duped. A team at the Indiana University worked with Thompson to replicate his study and, again, most riders beat their best by 2% when racing the avatar. Then the researchers told the athletes they had been deceived and asked them to race one more time, again at 2% faster pace than their personal best. “They still managed to beat it,” says Thompson. “They’d shifted their pacing template.”
A more proven method of raising your pacing bar, perhaps, is greater selfawareness – specifically association and dissociation. “At certain intensities, you can switch off,” says Thompson. “Then you reach a point and associate with the body. Elite athletes associate with these signals more readily and at a greater range of intensities. They’re in tune with their bodies, meaning they judge pacing better and can also live with discomfort better than recreational riders.”
Another huge part of learning pace control is practising the course you’re going to compete on. “Recreational riders can check out the course online but, when it comes to the elites, we’ll often visit the course and record key sections on a GoPro,” adds Thompson. “Then play it back again and again. Psychologically you have a more accurate pacing algorithm.”
Whatever your riding experience or level of fitness, poor pacing can result in a shameful bonk. However, a combination of training tools and greater self-awareness should set you on the fastest path for pacing perfection. Allez allez!