Re: [Wattage] NP and 'Cross

Yes, Sorry for the delay...

Couple of thoughts...

First, above is a four race files in a single Quadrant Analysis from me from last year...
I was going much faster last year at this time so this is more valuable
than this year's files I have been generating.

Also, all of my race files from last year can be found here:

wattagetraining.com/cross/ (as mentioned here before).

As to the analysis Andy was discussing... I started with a real interest
in RollingNPower. And thought that cross might be an interesting race
to look for it...

The rider in question in Ali Goulet, a local Pro mtb'er/cat3 road racer
and good crosser (results here ).

The weekend before the file in question, he was at the USPG of CX and
took 30 and 41 (here).

The following weekend, he was racing locally and took second to local
stud Bart Gillespie. The analysis is from that file.

Here is what I was really interested in:

http://wattagetraining.com/cross/rolling/rollingPowerSimple.htm

and here is the QA:

http://wattagetraining.com/cross/rolling/QAcrossSimple.htm

In our discussion, Andy and I were curious what his threshold was. He
had claimed to me 310+. I guessed that was a little high. Andy
conjectured the same, but as I guessed too, that the stress of running
(this course had two staircases and set of high barriers) was discounted
from the equation.

Also the thoughts of Dave "the man" Harris and his road and mtb pofiles
in CPS come to mind.

In follow-up discussions with Ali, he provided a M6 workout (8min 6x)
that while strong showed fade... the first interval is 8m@323, the last
is 8m@276 (all intervals @ +/-3w of aveP/NP). That said I would
estimate his threshold at close to the average of those 48 minutes (297w).

Anyway - short story long... the RollingNPower showed what I expected
for a cross race - high starting value and a drop as the race is sorted
and everyone kind of settles into their places. I would suspect that
this would be the same for many a MTB race as well. But would expect a
crit to be U shaped as well as maybe even a rr.

QA also shows what I have seen in other CX files... a reduced cadence as
a function of terrain, albiet not necessarily at a reduced power.

Special thanks to Ali for the files and for letting me share this with
the group...

I hope someone else finds it interesting too.

greg steele
www.wattagetraining.com/blog/ - coaches blog
greg@wattagetraining.com
801.815.0921

Andrew Coggan wrote:
>
> Greg Steele recently sent me a 'cross file that, IIRC, showed basically
> the same thing. As for why the normalized power is relatively low in
> what most perceive to be a very hard form of racing, I can only
> speculate:
>
> 1) although the running periods in a 'cross race may not be any longer
> than the coasting periods of a criterium, you *are* running, not
> coasting/resting. In effect, then, you're getting "penalized" by the
> normalized power algorithm when you shouldn't be. (It might be
> interesting to look at normalized power after you snip out all the
> periods off the bike...if you can easily identify them, that is.)
>
> 2) the rough terrain itself may reduce your ability to generate power
> even when riding, as a number of MTB racers have observed.
>