Marmotte - Compared to the best

Following on from last post there another comparison to be made is with that of Andrew Bye, a top British road racer who came in 9th. http://andrewbye.blogspot.com/

Table below shows how we compared on the various sections of the event. It's possible to add a couple of columns to each set of stats to look at power/weight and power as a % of FTP (Andrew did a MAP in January with a result of 457 which gives FTP of 343 (assuming 75% of MAP). My FTP (as per 25TT) is 305 (BTW my most recent MAP was 408 = 306 @ 75% ) 

		Me 2008		71	kg			Andrew Bye		74	kg
Section	Distance	Time	Work	Power	Npwr	Npwr/kg	Power %	Time	Work	Power	Npwr	Npwr/kg	Power %
Start to Glandon base	13	0:23	230	152	198	2.7	65	0:23	311	222	273	3.8	80
Glandon Climb	23	1:23	1262	254	268	3.8	87	1:04	1281	331	355	5.0	104
Glandon Descent	42	1:09	572	137	201	2.8	66	0:24	203	137	177	2.5	52
Glandon base to Telegraphe								0:36	606	277	293	4.1	85
Telegraphe	12	0:50	763	250	254	3.6	83	0:40	821	335	338	4.8	99
Tel descent to Gal base	5	0:07	29	74	119	1.7	39	0:06	239	171	239	3.4	70
Galibier	18	1:24	1112	224	229	3.2	75	1:06	1224	306	309	4.4	90
Gal descent to ADH base	48	1:08	396	101	170	2.4	56	1:02	694	185	224	3.2	65
Alpe D'Huez	13	1:10	934	222	229	3.2	75	0:54	1019	313	318	4.5	93
	175	7:34	5298	195	230	3.2	75	6:19	6398	273	306	4.3	89

The statistics from Andrew Bye make impressive reading especially the absolute power on the climbs. (The first climb seems to have been done at over FTP which probably means my guess of FTP based on a January MAP is low.)

The biggest lesson for me, I think, lies in the power % column. Even if I have underestimated his FTP it looks as if Andrew rode the event at a much higher relative intensity than I did. His climbs were all over 90% and is overall ride was at 89%.

My figures seem a bit timid by comparision, after the Glandon (87%) I rode the remaining climbs at a more conservative 80>75%, with my overall effort for the ride being just 75%.

I will try to take some lessons from this:

• I am too scared of pain. Partly I am a coward, but this I think is also because I came at cycling through doing long solo tour when each day needed to be judged because there was always another (often harder) day to come. So I am more used to pacing myself to finish rather than finish fast.
• Power meters are great for training and pacing but I think I am now paying a little too much attention to mine. I felt great on the climb of the Glandon but got worried because I was over schedule and to some extent I think I made myself take it easy on the last climbs for fear of blowing up.

Coming up this weekend I will be doing another sportive (the "Legbreaker") which I entered just to get the opportunity to see a new bit of the country. I will try an experiment and tape over the displays on my Powertap and Etrex and just ride on feel. There are some tough hills on the ride and I will try to push myself up to and over my pain threshold on these. Should prove interesting...