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.