Race-day targets

Race-day targets

Your race-day power target should take into account:

• your running fitness – your Threshold Power on race-day
• your fatigue resistance – one of two different metrics, depending on whether you’re running a shorter, higher-intensity race or a longer, lower-intensity race
• your running effectiveness – to convert between distance and duration, and to provide an estimated finish time

You may also want to take into account:

• the course hilliness – as this will impact your Running Effectiveness, and may extend your estimated finish time
• the race-day environment – including the altitude, heat and humidity, all of which can impact your ability to run at your target power

Given the complexity, there are very few solutions that can calculate race-day targets, yet race-day is a key (perhaps the key) focus for most runners.

Stryd Race Power Calculator

Stryd’s calculator uses data from your last 90 days of training to estimate race predictions.

For an accurate prediction, the model relies on the following (note that Stryd uses the term Critical Power / CP for Threshold Power):

• An accurate Critical Power. If you use Stryd’s Auto-CP, your last 90 days of training should include: Short distance running such as sprinting or fast strides (10-30 seconds in duration); Middle distance running such as a 10-20 minute fast tempo run or runs at 5k/10k intensity; Long, slow running (50+ minutes of duration); a short run in the 3-5 minute duration.
• A balanced Power Duration Curve (PDC) that extends from the 10-minute duration to the 20-minute duration. Note that if you’ve maintained an accurate Auto-CP, your PDC should already be balanced.
• At least 1 workout conducted around your Critical Power, to gauge your Running Effectiveness around your Critical Power.
• At least 1 workout conducted around the intensity for your target race distance, to gauge your Running Effectiveness at your target race intensity.
• A valid racecourse uploaded via PowerCenter, to assess course hilliness.

You input your race distance, and optionally your training environment (from your training history, but can be adjusted) and the expected environment on race day.

It produces a single target power number (and the equivalent percentage of Critical Power), and an estimated finish time, along with estimated times along the distance.

Does it work? Many Stryd users have reported that the target and the estimated finish time were accurate.

SuperPower Calculator (for Sheets)

SuperPower Calculator (for Sheets) calculates scenarios based on your training metrics, and relies on the following (note that SPCs uses the term FTP/CP for Threshold Power):

• An accurate FTP/CP, from any source – CP test, Stryd Auto-CP, WKO Functional Threshold Power (FTP) etc.
• The weight configured in your Power meter, to convert from Watts to Watts/kg
• The target distance – you may want to over-estimate the distance slightly, since few runners will be able to ‘follow the blue line’ on race-day
• For a shorter, higher-intensity event, your Reserve Work Capacity – calculated from a CP test, taken from WKO’s Functional Reserve Capacity, or calculated from your PDC
• For a longer, lower-intensity event, your expected Riegel Exponent – based on prior races at the race distance, or estimated using a table provided in the tool
• A range of Running Effectiveness values centred around your expected RE for the distance – this can be taken from your training history, and fine-tuned based on the resulting target power values.

The range of Running Effectiveness values (along with Riegel Exponent values for longer events) are entered in a scenario table in the calculator, which returns target average powers (Watts and Watts/kg), estimated finish time and percentage of FTP/CP for each scenario.

You can fine-tune the result using other calculations in SPCs to account for hilliness (Course Variability Index) and environmental differences on race-day vs. your training environment.

Steve Palladino has provided an impressive YouTube playlist demonstrating how to use SPCs to calculate race-day target power, and how to adjust the target for hilliness and environment.

Does it work? Many runners have reported that the scenarios produced target power and estimated finish times that were accurate.

Note that while SPCs requires a little more manual effort than Stryd’s race power calculator, it provides a range of scenarios enabling you to make the final determination of your race power range.

Other options?

The above are options I know about. Do you have any additional options?