Ouch

I guess this was at the Cyclonauts Crit over Memorial Day weekend. Looks painful.

Sunapee Analysis

I still haven't managed to figure out a way to get my Garmin data into excel, but I did some crude power calculations for the Mt. Sunapee Race the other week by printing out graphs from motion based, measuring them with a ruler, and applying the White Mt. speed/power calculator. This is a really ghetto way of producing power data but it gives me a pretty good idea of what I want to know.

There was an article on Velocity Nation a while back that provides a basis to compare your power data. I'm not sure exactly how all this data was derived, but it seems like some of it may be based off of a TT hill climb local to the author. It may or may not be accurate but it makes for a fun comparison.

The picture above shows an elevation profile of the first lap of the Sunapee race. I used this graph and the elevation vs. time graph to determine the time, distance, and elevation change of a couple different hills. I put this data into the aforementioned speed/power calculator assuming a number of different things, the most significant being aero drag factor (CdA) and weight. I toggled the input power until the time output in the excel sheet was equal to the time it took me to cover the ground.

The first real climb was about 1.1 miles at 3.9% grade for a vertical rise of 222 feet. Prior to this climb the pace was super mellow and my legs were good and fresh. I stayed tight with the pack and did the climb in 4 minutes which translates into 365 watts or 4.7 W/kg. This effort had me breathing hard, but was not quite a 100% effort. Unfortunately I was not wearing my HR monitor but I'd estimate a peak of 180-185 here. I normally get dropped once my HR exceeds 190. If I were to sustain this 4.7 W/kg effort for 5 minutes (which I did not), I would fall into the "good" or "cat3" category according to the Velocity Nation table.

This table seems a little misleading to me because it's not clear exactly what their ranges represent. Is the 5-minute effort a one shot deal? Should it be when I'm fresh or two hours into a suffer-fest when my legs are toast? Seems like it'd make for a better comparison if it were a one shot deal on fresh legs, but who knows.

I certainly burnt a match in this effort, and I know I wasn't the only one. The pack stretched out a bit here as several other riders seemed to be struggling (more so the bigger boys). I think 1 or 2 may have even dropped here. Is it fair to say this was a cat3 effort here? Certainly not, but this number does seem to suggest that our pack was on the high end of the range given on the VN power table.

On one of the rollers following this first hill the pack split up a bit, and I found myself in a 5 man chase group 100 meters behind the pack. We managed to bridge the gap by pushing on the downhill and up the next climb. This climb is the second climb in the picture that I crunched some numbers for.

This climb was a 2 minute climb at 4.8% grade which is about a 426W, 5.5 W/kg effort for me after a good effort on the previous downhill and flats. Numbers for a 2 minute effort are mostly meaningless as I have no grounds to compare them. The VN power table list W/kg for 1 minute and 5 minute efforts. 5.5 W/kg is at the rock bottom of the scale for a 1 minute effort, and all the way up into the cat1 range for a 5 minute effort. This suggets that my fitness is somewhere between an untrained cat5 racer and a cat1 racer, great! I suppose I could use the VN power data to make a multivariable regression so that I could interpolate, but what's the point? This is already enough of a wag.

The last climb that I crunched numbers for is the climb that I got dropped on. 7.3% grade, 3 minutes, average 304 W or 3.9 W/kg. I was probably tired going into this. I imagine that my power started off fine and decreased once I dropped the pack. The point is that this wasn't enough power to stay with the pack.

So there's some power numbers, make what you will of them. Maybe some day I'll pick up a power tap and really have some fun data to play with, but till then I'll be using my poor-man's method.

Ottawa Half Marathon

I haven’t been running much at all, and went into this race not having much of an idea what to expect. I thought that the long hours put in on the bike might translate well into end of the race endurance. Did an interval workout two weeks ago when my bike was being fixed up and thought I might be able to run at 8-minute mile pace. The course is flat so this would put me around a 1:45:00 time. The weather forecast was good too, 60°F, cloudly, and a small chance of light showers by the end of the race.

I lined up with the 1:30-1:45 group. About 2 minutes before the start the field compressed and pushed up and all of the sudden I was in the sub-1:30 group. Oops.

For the first 2 km (everything is in km here, not miles, so bear with me) I started with what felt like a good relaxed pace. My headphones were blasting which is something I like to do when I run so I can’t hear how loudly I’m breathing. It tends to freak me out and slow me down.

At the 5 km mark I was looking for a timing clock but there wasn’t one anywhere and I wasn’t wearing a watch. The course cross the river and we leave Ottawa and enter it’s sister city, Hull, which is in the French-Canadian province Quebec. I tried asking a nearby runner if he knew the time but he said something back to me in French. Sweet. I had no idea how fast I was going but I was breathing pretty hard and my knee was showing signs of tightening up, so I eased up off of what I thought was an 8 minute mile pace.

The Ottawa Marathon didn’t have a single timing clock out on the course, but instead they had runners with pink paper bunny-rabbit ears that held signs indicating the pace they are running at. Must be a Canadian thing. After easing up a bit at around 6 km the 1:40 pace bunny passed me. I guess I had been running a little faster than I wanted to at around a 7:30 minute mile pace. This lifted my spirits for a while.

The course crosses the river again at around 10 km and we go back to Ottawa. I was feeling pretty good through here but I think the large number of spectators may have helped with that. I had a PowerGel around 8 km so I had lots of energy, just a few pains in the left knee and right hip.

By 12 km the course is parrelelling a canal and it’s something like 5 km out and 5 km back to the finish. You can see the elite runners coming back on the other side of the canal which is encouraging for a little bit, but it gets old fast. By 14 km I was just praying that we’d cross a bridge to the other side. Both of my knees and hips were hurting pretty bad.

Not much happened in the last 7 km of the race except that I just kept going slower and slower. My knees, hips, ankles and feet were just on fire. A 3:20 marathon pace bunny passed me with 4 km to go. At first I thought it was a 2 hour pace bunny which was really frustrating. Again I had little clue as to how fast or slow I was going. Shortly behind the 3:20 marathon bunny was the 1:50 half marathon bunny. That’s more like it.

I tried to stay with the 1:50 bunny but I could hardly move my joints hurt so badly. This must be what it feels like to be 70 and have arthritis.

With maybe 1 km to go my ankle started spasaming which almost sent me to the ground. For some reason my left arm was doing the same. This happened three or four times during the last 1,000 meters to the finish. Good thing the race wasn’t another mile longer because I don’t think I would have made it.

Crossed the finish line with a time of about 1:52 even.

Looking back at my prediction of 1:45 I think it was a little aggressive. I checked my training log after the race and realized that I’d only run 13 miles so far this year. I knew I hadn’t been running much but I thought I was more in the 30-50 mile range. Haha, oh well. Interesting science experiment if nothing else. Two days later I’m still incredibely sore, to the point that I’m walking funny. Hopefully I’ll be able to recover in time for the Lake Auburn race this weekend.

So Long Cat 5

Today I requested that my USCF Road license be upgraded to Category 4 and it was approved. So long Cat5!

For my friends that are wondering, the bike leg of the Josh Billings Triathlon does count towards the upgrade.

Sunapee Road Race

This was my first time back on the bike since last Wednesday when I crashed at Wompatuck. Cycle Loft was busy and took a while, but they did very good work and got my bike feeling like new. Got a block of high intensity but relatively short workouts in on Monday through Wednesday including a track workout (running!?) and two spinning classes. Thursday and Friday were rest days with most of my free time spent putting the finishing touches on my bike and traveling up to Newport Friday night. That being said, expectations were low, just hoping to hang with the pack the best I could.

The forecast was iffy all week for Saturday, with the last forecast I saw calling for 40% chance of precipitation. It rained pretty much all day, go back and fourth between showers and pouring. Temperatures were cold too, about 45F at the start. Before the race, Big Time and I sat in the ski lodge just stretching out thinking that we'd have enough time spent outside in the rain over the 46 mile race.

Sitting at the starting line, everyone was joking around about taking it super easy and having a safe race. The roads were soaked. For the first several miles the pace was mellow. TPM and I sat in the back and just took it easy.

The first hill was long and gradual, and it had me sucking air pretty good by the top. Everyone in the pack started getting really quiet at this point.

Lots of rolling hills in this race and not so much of the flat stuff. As soon as we got over one hill it was a quick descent and into the next hill. I was definitely hurting a little bit at the top of each hill, burning a match each time.

On one hill the pack split a little bit and I got caught on the rear end of it. Had to step on it a bit coming down the other side to bridge. I think a few people got shelled here.

Someone must've attacked on a downhill on the north side of the course because the pack strung out for the first time. Burned another match or two here feeling a little nervous about following too closely on the soaked roads. I haven't finished healing yet and a crash could be very bad, so safety was the priority.

About 3/4 through the lap is a pretty steep hill, had me in the 53/19 or so with mostly fresh legs. This was the end for me. I was a little winded going into it so that didn't help.

The big thing that really killed me was the accordion effect. Had to slow way down at the start of the climb. This had been going on all race and was driving me nuts. When I train alone I try to carry speed into a climb and start off on a gear that I know is too big. As the climb goes on I quickly downshift into a more manageable gear. Felt like everyone else would shift into their climbing gear and coast at the beginning.

At least five people got shelled here. I knew TPM and Rob were planning a big attack at the top of this hill, and they did just that. There was no catching up.

Spent the next hour and a mostly half time trialing in the cold rain. I think a lot of racers that had been dropped gave up at the end of the first lap. It'd be a lie if I said I didn't seriously consider doing the same. Having DNF'd three races in a row now I just ground it out. It was freezing cold and extremely demoralizing each time a field would catch me but I stuck it out. Got a great workout at least.

Blue Hills Classic

Woke up at 6AM for the Blue Hills Circuit Race and felt like I needed another 5 hours of sleep. Could have been the 32 mile “recovery” ride I did the night before at too fast a pace. Could have been the late night on Friday and lack of sleep that night. Looking out my window it looked cold and damp, my legs were sore, and I was seriously considering going back to bed. Nonetheless I threw my stuff in the car, hit up Bruegger’s, and went down to Milton.

The relatively small parking lot at the ice skating rink was just about full when I got there around 6:45. At registration, there was a line 20 men deep for the cat4’s, and not one person in line for the cat 5’s. Warmed up on the trainer for about 10 or 15 minutes and felt surprisingly good. It was still cold out though. I regretted not getting a long-sleeve jersey at cycle loft the day before, although I’m still pumped to have scored a pair of blue bib shorts (didn’t know these existed).

We had a pretty short pre-race meeting, and TPM and I got a good spot at the front. There was one other NEBC racer, Josh, riding a hot looking green Indy-Fab bike. It seemed like there may have been a few more inexperienced riders than typical (even for a cat 5 race) at the start. One racer was asking “Is this a crit race or a road race?” and “What’s the average speed at one of these things?” about 60 seconds before the start.

The neutral start was about a mile or so, maybe less, and led from the ice rink to the 3.2 mile loop. The loop itself was different than most courses. You were either climbing or descending, hardly and flats. The climbing part was about 200 vertical over a mile, which is about 4% average grade.

This was the first race that I really put time up front. It’s amazing how much of the mid-pack craziness you miss out on. I took two pulls, including one on the bumpy 40 mph descent on the first lap. Right before beginning the climb there is a somewhat nasty hairpin turn. I was on the front inside position and the guy on the front outside lost a little control and nearly went into the woods. It’s funny to think of the poor people in the back that may be so affected by how I set the pace at the front.

As soon as we got to the hill a bunch of people came around to push the pace. Figures. I was a little more winded than I’d probably like to be for the start of the climb. I did make it to the top but not with a whole lot of gas left. The interval training in the previous two weeks may have been helping. This lap I planned to sit in on the downhill and take a rest.

At the beginning of the descent we went over a couple of bumps, and the next thing I know my seat is angled right up my butt. I tried to adjust it while moving but the thing wouldn’t budge. I pulled to the side and slammed the brakes and tried to fix it, but the screw had backed way out and the seat was sliding all around. I couldn't fix it without tools. I guess the vibrations must've backed out the screw slightly and the bumpy road knocked it loose. Who knows.

I rode back to my car and took off feeling pretty annoyed. At least I was back in bed by 9AM.