Here's a question on pacing.
Conference finals is two loops of 21mile long road, and the loop has a 5 mile long climb averaging 5%. Miles 2-4 average 7.5%. The finishline is about 4.5 miles from the top of the climb, during which the road dips 400'.
I consider myself a puncheur and not a climber. My FTP was tested to be 260 (flat road) in early January, and i'd think it's around 275 right now. My 5' power is at least 360 (uphill), which gives me a high pVO2max:FTP ratio. In the race this past weekend, i had a NP of 300 and AP of 260 for something slightly over 40 minutes, and the high NP is probably due to the 4' long VO2 max effort required per lap.
If you were in my shoes, how deep would you dig for the climb? Does averaging 290W for the five miles sound reasonable or likely? What i really won't like to see is somehow get stuck in no man's land between groups of riders as soloing 21 miles only to climb the damn thing again sounds awful...
Also, there are no local climbs over 5 miles long unless i want to go 40 miles out. What types of workouts would you try to do to simulate the demands? Something like 5x6x3 climbing intervals at 300W maybe?