Running at what power

Power meters for running is increasing rather fast in the past few years with more and more runners and triathletes investing in a powe meter like Stryd.  With an incredible amount of extra data to help analyse and give feedback, here are some basic numbers to train and race with a power meter.

Racing: 

This is a quick guide and should be looked at as just a starting point.

• 5km run race @103% of CP
• 10km run race @ 100% of CP
• Half Marathon @ 94% of CP
• Marathon @ 90% of CP
• Sprint Distance Triathlon @ 95% of CP
• Olympic Distance Triathlon: 90% of CP
• Half Ironman @85% of CP
• Ironman @80% of CP

Training: 

Again this is just a starting point to get you training to power and doing intervals.

How to find your Critical Power (CP)

This is a god quick guide to do a CP test.

– Warm up with 15 minutes of easy running with 4x approximately 50m accelerations.
– recover
– run 3 minutes at maximal 3 minute effort (try to pace as evenly as possible)
– recover
– run easy for 5-10 minutes
– recover fully (there should be at least 20 minutes between test segments)
– run 10 minutes at maximal 10 minute effort (try to pace as evenly as possible)
– recover
– easy running cool down for balance of planned duration

After the run, to get your CP/FTP estimate, you can enter the average power for the 3 minute and 10 minute segments here: http://www.cyclingpowerlab.com/MonodCriticalPower.aspx