Marmotte power pacing - guide

Based on last years experience here is a rough and ready guide on how to prepare for and pace the Marmottte using a power meter.

Put simply the Marmotte consists of 4 big climbs and 2 big descents and a nasty link ride after descent 1. To do well you need to be a good climber and good (at least safe) descender. A powermeter is useful for training for and pacing the climbs, which will account for around 70% of ride time. Its no use for descents which need separate training. (Good advice here: Flamme Rouge Descend Like a Pro). It might be useful for the nasty link section but best thing for this is find a group and work with it.

Rest of this post is about pacing the climbs.

Step 1. Find your "FTP" - this is important for most aspects of training. Its especially so for rides like the Marmotte. For a good guide to measuring FTP see here:

FTP Measurement - Alex's 7 deadly sins


Step 2: Set your goals. Once you know your FTP then the next step is to decide how you want to ride the event, balancing best finish time with chance of blowup. I'd suggest choosing between one of 3 options:

"Death or Glory": Only advised if you are a top quality rider. Basically this means trying to do the climbs at 90%-100% of your FTP. High risk but possible (see the stats for the elite rider below for an example)

"Go Fast" If you want to push yourself without too much risk of blow up aim to climb at around 75% to 90% of FTP. This is the option I took.

"Slow But Sure": If you want to be sure to finish then aim to climb at around 60%-75% of FTP.


Step 3: Guesstimate your climb time for each of the climbs.

From the above you should have a rough idea of the power you will be aiming for. You can use this to plug into a calculator like this: Bike Calculator which will give you an guesstimate for how long each climb will take. e.g. for me FTP 305W weighing 70kg with a 9kg bike the 13km@8% climb of Alpe D'Huez is guessed to take around 67 minutes if I manage 229W (75% of FTP). This is pretty damn close (I actually took 70 minutes)

The output from this will be four sets of power figures and estimated climb times. e.g.

1 Glandon 245W 23km@5% guess 80 minutes
2 Telegraphe 240W 12km@7% 55 minutes
3 Galibier 235W 18km@7% 85 minutes
4 Alpe 230W 13km@8% 70minutes

(Its best to assume that you will lose a bit of power each climb.)

(If you want to guess total ride time add these up and add an extra 2.5 -3 hours for other bits.)

Step 4a: Train to with the climb goals in mind. So try to do rides with average power/time the same as the climbs. So using above example, try riding for 80 minutes at 245W average power. If you can do this, do it again, rest for an hour or so then try a ride of 240W for 55 minutes.

Or to simulate the Telegraph/Galibier climb ride 240W for 55 minutes, have a 10 minute rest then try 235W for 85minutes.

This may sound a bit tough, that's the point. If you cant do the power/time then try reducing one or other and build from there (so 245W for 60 minutes if cant manage 80).

During all these rides eat as you would plan to eat during the event. As a rough guide aim to eat 1-1.5g of carbohydrate per minute.

Step 4b: Supplement this training with training at FTP level. Classic is 2x20mins at FTP with a 5 minute rest.

From this training you will get a feel as to whether or not the guesstimates from Step 3 are right or not. If needs be go back and adjust them.

Step 5. (Optional) do trial run, by doing all 4 "climbs" in a day, with a gap of an hour or so between 1 and 2, 10 mins between 2 and 3, and an hour between 3 and 4.

Step 6: Check your gearing: find hills of 5-12% and just check gearing is comfortable to allow you to put out power needed.

Step 7: Ride. From all the above you should have a good idea of how to tackle each of the major climbs on the Marmotte itself. Get to the start early, tag onto a group on the run up to the first climb, then climb to your target power. Prepare to be flexible though. Events may mean you need to change your targets for each climb. Beauty of having a powermeter is that you can do this in a controlled way. So if feeling good try upping power by 5-10W. If feeling bad lower it a bit.

Step 8. Hopefully finish well. If planning to ride event or similar again then the actuals you managed form the basis for next training plan.

Some real numbers

Marmotte stats: Me vs fellow amateur

Marmotte stats: Me vs top Brit Elite rider

For more general info see the guide here: Marmotte Guide