Wells Ave 3/30 - B Race

It was another cold one Sunday morning 28°F in Lexington when we left the house at 9 in the morning. Luckily the sun was shining and the wind was calm, so it wasn’t TOO too bad. Legs were a little tired from a 2,000 kJ ride the day before, but felt pretty good by the time we got down to Wells Ave. The shortest ride down from the new apartment is 10 miles and goes through Waltham, Watertown, and Newton, and has a lot of stopping and going at intersections. Good for warming up. Had a better breakfast consisting of oatmeal, 2 eggs, and grape juice. Still not enough calories for the day though.

We arrived just in time for the start, I shed some layers and hopped on the back of the group. I wasn’t too worried about starting in the back and it proved to be very easy to move up in the field on the first lap.

I think we had 4 NEBC guys in the race including Oscar, Ken, Josh and myself. My goal for the day was to work on positioning and finishing by going for as many primes as possible, and of course get a good workout. No plans for a long break away or even one lap flyers. When the prime bell rang I wanted to find the right position and be able to pop for the win.

My legs felt good out there today and I ended up going for every prime except for one which was with 6 or 7 laps to go. I was able to sprint consistently for each prime at 95% of max effort without blowing up. This allowed me to recover for pretty much every prime which was every five laps (4.0 miles, 10 minutes) or so. A huge improvement from last year when one prime effort would leave me fighting for dear life to hang on the pack.

That being said I did not win a single prime! Every time I’d come up just a little short, with multiple 3^rd and 4^th place finishes. There was one strong rider in a brick-colored wind breaker that took the first two. He would break early coming out of turn four and hold on for the win. It seemed like every time I was consistently starting just a little too far back, maybe ten deep, and just couldn’t quite seem to make it.

The closest I came was the first prime. I was about about ten deep with about ¾ of the straightaway to go, and a big hole opened up the mid-right side. I went to take it coming out of the saddle with a strong ~80% sprint effort. As I came through, another rider came to the right and we locked shoulders for a brief moment. Pretty sketchy feeling when cranking out 800-900W. I was able to pull through and made a second big effort to catch the two riders who now had a 20m gap or so. I really started blowing up with about 50-100m to go and started coasting. I thought we were at the line already and didn’t realize there was another small distance to go. The lead two guys must have been blowing up too, as I almost passed them after I started coasting. Another kJ might have been all I needed. This was a pretty big missed opportunity. I need to commit more to my efforts but first I need to get more confidence that I can recover consistently from prime efforts.

At the end of almost every prime lap Oscar came to the front and attacked, looking for that breakaway. He does a really good job at this and I could count on him coming by every time like Old Faithful. Some times a few guys would come out with him, but it doesn’t seem like many people in the B race are ever that interested in trying to form a successful break. Instead, most people were more interested in chasing anything and everything down, making it really difficult for any break to stick.

I sat in a bit more in the last 20 minutes of the race, missing out on my only prime of the day. I made a last minute decision to go for the prime with three to go coming from somewhere in the middle of the field, but again coming up just short in the end. My calves were cramping a little bit by this time, but I really wanted to make a strong effort at the finish.

The bell rang for the last lap, and I was on Ken’s wheel, who was on the Quad Cycles guy’s wheel that had won the half-way prime, who was on brick-colored windbreaker guy’s wheel, all about ten wheels back. Got that? The point is I was exactly where I thought I should be. On the back straight we were moving nice and fast, with little movement in the field. Coming into turn three we eoncountered a car, and the guys on the front waved off the sprint. Around turn four a huge bunch of people came racing around, not knowing that we had neutralized. When we came to the finishing straight there were four cars or so, and everyone started yelling.

We stayed neutral until turn two. I was sitting in the dead smack middle of the field, and everyone was licking their chops having just had a nice break soft pedaling at 15mph behind traffic. It was a pretty unnerving situation. If I were smart I probably would have just fell off the back to be safe, but instead I joined the other testosterone junkies that were looking for a crazy mass sprint.

Coming into turn three Ken came attacking around the left side of the pack at an enormous speed differential. I thought for a split second about going with him, but decided that he was going too hard and too early for me even to stay in his draft. He later told me that he thought the sprint would be suicide and that he’d rather go for the heroic break and try to hold on. That was probably the smartest move.

The final sprint ended up being just as crazy as anticipated. We were really flying coming out of turn four, I was at 600-700 watts in a draft somewhere in the middle of the field. I stayed put in the saddle pedaling as hard as possible coming up the left side with about half the straightaway. As I came around the left I got a clear view of just how big of a gap the leaders had. By the finish I was somewhere around 10-12^th with Josh just along side me. The sprint actually ended up being pretty smooth and safe (at least from my point of view).

The PowerTap data is interesting to compare for each of the Wells Ave races over the past three weeks. Average speed, kJ of work, and average watts are all amazingly consistent despite feeling much stronger this week than any previous week. The big differences are in normalized power and TSS. In each week I’ve made more and more efforts at primes. This requires more VO2 max efforts followed by periods of light pedaling or coasting which drives up normalized power and TSS, but not average power or work done.

Wells Ave 3/23 - B Race

On Friday my plan was to pedal down to Wells and back to get some additional miles in, maybe 15 extra miles each way. Tuesday-Friday was a nasty block of training. Saturday was also supposed to be restful, but after moving to a new apartment from 9AM to 10PM I could barely walk when I got up in the morning. The cold 30F weather didn't help the motivation either and I considered bagging it altogether.

Breakfast was a muffin and egg souflait (sp?) from Panera (greasy, bad choice), and a cliff bar on the drive down. No food in the new house yet. Showed up just in time to get 1 lap of warmup. Also getting over a cold, snot running everywhere. Overall the pre-race stuff was pretty poor.

3 NEBC guys in the B race, including Les, and one other rider who's name I'm not sure of. Seemed like a slightly larger field too, maybe 50 guys? A fair amount of college racers showed.

I stayed near the front to take a few shots at primes, but I was lacking high end power today. Every time the field would wind up for a prime, I struggled just to stay on a wheel. Heart rate was running normal, just couldn't seem to push it very high during crunch time. I think that was the lack of rest.

My big effort of the day was when a NEU rider and I rolled off the front with something like 18 to go. We traded a few pulls and I hoped for the prime bell to ring, but it didn't happen. It was a little windy by turns 1 and 2 and I definitely didn't have the threshold power to stay away. The field caught us after being off the front for about 2 laps.

3 laps later I tried giving the unidentified NEBC racer a leadout for the half-way prime ($10/1st $5/2nd), he had looked strong on the early primes. It ended up being not much of a leadout, most my effort went into getting position. An attack came right when the prime bell rang, and we bridged up to the break shortly after. By the time the straightaway came I was floored and couldn't help anymore. It looked like he put up a good fight to the line but came up a little short.

A 2-man break went off with about 12 to go. The pair stayed away long enough at about 300m out that the official called a field prime. The pace picked up for the prime lap and stayed hard for another lap or two until the break was finally caught. I'm impressed that the pair stayed away as long as they did.

Nearing the end of the race I was holding good position near the front, and I was hoping for a strong finish. The last 2 laps felt super fast and I struggled just to stick with the field, no top-end power at all. I didn't make a go at the final sprint and coasted through the finish. I'm not sure how the other NEBC racers ended up, everything was looking hazy by the then.

Powertap data was very similar to last week, including HR, average power, normalized power and total work done. No sprinting efforts today shows, although my max 5s power came from an in-saddle effort near the end of a prime lap. Max 5-minute power was a bit higher this week due to the 1.5-lap break. Average speed was a little bit higher due to less traffic.

Wells Ave 3/16 - B Race

First race of the season today. After a good amount of alpine ski racing this winter and not a whole lot of time on the trainer (<5 hours per week), I was eager to see how my legs would hold up. Alpine ski racing is like doing 30-60 second intervals, which is probably the opposite of what is ideal for the off-season. I had a fear that I would get owned in the early season races.

I splurged and picked up a powertap back in November. Thank you Ebay for the $700 price tag (brand new 2.4 wired built on an open pro rim). I also picked up a copy of trainingpeaks WKO+. No more processing Garmin Edge data to estimate power in my own Excel workbook, exciting stuff. Anywho, now I have some more content for the blog.

It was cold out this morning, 35F and a 30% chance of snow. My fingers were frozen pretty much all day, feet weren't much better. The C race was going when I arrived at Wells, and not a very big field. It looked like six guys had exploded the field apart. I was happy to learn that they were going to run separate B and A races. I think we had a field of 40 or so, the A's looked like they had even more (60?). Pretty sweet turnout all things considered.

The B race felt slow right from the start, always nice. My perceived effort was low to moderate for most of the race, and the PT data pretty much said the same. Average HR was 171 and average power was 194W, which is comfortably below my threshold values. In addition, a prime lap that got my HR up to 194 was surprisingly easy to recover from. Looking back at last year's performances average HR's ran upwards of 185 and HR's of 194 would pretty much end a race for me. I was very pleased with my fitness given my sub-par winter training.

The pace lifted up significantly for the half way prime ($10/$5!). Coming up the hill on turn 2 a Quad Cycle rider attacked hard. This was the first real attack of the race and no one responded at all. I was boxed in about 12-15 deep, and never had a real shot. I think I rolled through about 6th, and the Quad Cycle guy just managed to hold off the field.

The prime bell rang with 11 to go, and an IBC racer that I recognized attacked up the side. I jumped up to his wheel and I thought 1 or 2 other may have too. I pulled through on the back stretch thinking we had a group of 4, but by turn 3 it was just me. Not sure how big of a gap I had, but I thought it was probably ~30m so I put my head down and kept at it. Three or four people caught me about 50m before line, bummer. A solo flyer is not my usual tactic but it sure was fun.

We were averaging about 24 mph when things got mixed up with traffic at about 10 to go. The police officer that was directing traffic was not stopping cars when the peloton was coming. We got stuck behind a line of traffic and most of the field sat up, yet one racer attacked off the front and around the traffic. On the next three laps or so the field ran into the same problems with traffic. We were going 18mph at times and I averaged 100 watts almost every lap from 10 to 5 to go. The solo flyer stayed out of sight for the rest of the race, although the word in the field was that he had been pulled, but who knows.

With two to go a larger rider came around me. This was the guy who's wheel I wanted for the finish. I hopped on and fought other riders off to hold it. On turn 3 of the final lap we were annoyingly far back in the field, probably at least half way back. A rider on with Zipp404's came around the side running silky smooth, so I bailed on my big guy and swapped wheels. Coming out of turn 4 I had been pulled up to 15th wheel or so, but my 404 guy was blowing up. I came around a lot earlier than I had planned and went for it with a long sprint, ~800W average for 15s. I couldn't catch the leaders and I think I finished in 7th, maybe 15m back. A pretty pleasing result for me, and I think with a little luck or better positioning I could have been right there with the leaders.

After the race I rode home at a good pace to do some sweet spot training. Riding hard and long is my favorite type of training, and this season I plan to do a lot more of it. Looking back at last season I did far too much interval training, and certainly not enough training after races. Pleasing results help motivation for this type of training after races, the challenge as the season goes on will be to find motivation after bad races.

My first big race of the season will be the Battenkill-Roubaix up in Salem, NY on April 19.