It’s not about average it’s about recovery speed on a course like that. Attack/rest/attack/rest etc…. Fast recovery on the flat and downhill bits is what you need. I doubt I could maintain 86% of max steady state for more than about 30 mins. If you look at the trace it dips quickly, which is me recovering. I also try to dictate the pace in the trails to give me time to recover, then attack when I am. The race today was a bit different as whenever Scott or I attacked a little bit we’d hit back markers and we’d bunch up again, hence the very close result. At a National race such issues don’t really exist so it would have been a different result – not sure who would have won out of Scott and myself at today’s race but it wouldn’t have been a win by 1 second if we’d had a clearer track. That’s why it was such a fun race! No room for mistakes…
As a comparison, here’s someone else’s trace from the 4hr race. they were going a lot slower than me (10 mins per lap slower) but still managed an 83% average: GB
