“The Josh” is my most fun race of the season. Unlike most triathlons it includes a canoe/kayak leg instead of a swimming leg, and the race begins with a mass start road race. Most people do the Josh in a team format although there are still many iron men. 500 cyclists line up in Great Barrington, MA, and start all at once. USCF licensed riders that are cat4 or better get to start at the front.
The first 2 miles of the 27-mile point-to-point bike leg are fast and resemble a downtown criterium with two sharp 90-degree corners. The second 90-degree turn heads out of town that leads into a short but selective hill. This first hill is a very significant part of the race because it breaks the massive 500-man pelican up into several smaller pelicans, usually 25-50 people each. It is very difficult to bridge up to a faster pelican, so it is essential to make the best effort possible on this first hill. The remainder of the bike leg includes moderately-sized rolling hills that make for a challenging race.
Cyclists hand off a wrist band to their canoeists after a screaming fast 45 mph downhill. One paddler will meet the cyclist up by the road to take the wrist band, run back to their boat, and run down to the boat launch. Paddlers do 1 and ¾ laps around Stockbridge Bowl for 5 miles total.
After completing the boat leg, paddlers pass the wrist band to their runner, who does a 6 mile route around Stockbridge Bowl on very hilly terrain. The last one-mile is all uphill before heading into the finish at Tanglewood.
This year I cycled with our family team, with Dad and Shawn paddling and Todd running. Big Time went from having a 4-man team, to a 3-man team, to a 2-man team, to being a kayak-class iron man. Erica and Jamie did a tin (2-person) women’s team
Bike Leg
As described above, the first hill is all-important for the outcome of the bike leg. I looked at my race data from 2007 and pre-rode the course on Saturday to gauge what type of an effort it would be. From the 90-degree turn to the back side of the hill (when you can stop pedaling hard) is about a 3 to 4 minute effort for cyclists at the front of the race. This hard anaerobic effort comes just 5 minutes into the race so a good warmup is crucial. Originally we planned on parking at the finish line and riding the 10 miles to the start, but showers the morning of the race changed that plan. Instead we parked at the start and did a shorter warmup. I got about 20 minutes total of warmup with one 2-3 minute effort at about 110% of threshold.
I got a decent position at the start but was still 3 rows back and on the left side. I’m not sure it’s worth sacrificing warmup time to line up super early on the front row, but at least you get your picture taken there. Josh Lipka and Jamey Driscoll (Fiordifrutta) were to my left, and if they didn’t need to be on the front neither did I. There were some fast guys present this year, including the two fruttas, Robbie King (Rite Aid), Chris Fischer and Nat Faulkner, all guys who typically break away from the first pack at ~26 mph. Jamey Driscol lined up sporting an aero helmet. I’ve never actually seen anyone use an aero helmet in a mass start race, but that sure makes a statement to the 500 other cyclists: “I’m going to go on a breakaway and there’s nothing you can do about it.”
The gun fired and we were on our way. Initially I took Lipka’s wheel and moved up near the front, but he went all the way up and I needed to stay a little more shettlered from the wind. I sat in around 20 wheels back as we cruised through Great Barrington at around 27 mph. The reflectors and yellow line (no yellow line rule in the first 2 miles) in the middle of the road were extremely slippery, and I couldn’t seem to get on a different line. After making the 90-degree left as we approached town center I started getting swarmed and had fallen somewhere around 40 or 50 wheels back. Luckily being on the outside paid off and I was able to do some swarming of my own just before the 90-degree turn leading into the all-important first hill. I moved all the way up to tenth wheel just before the turn.
I took the outside line around the 90-degree right-hand turn which let me carry slightly more speed into the hill. The pace stayed pretty mellow for the first half of the climb and I stayed in my big ring. The climb has a false flat in the middle and I used this to try and relax and stay sheltered behind the rider in front of me. As we came to the last steep section near the end of the hill, I saw Lipka spring out of his saddle and start drilling it. The pace went from manageable to insane. As we crested the top of the hill there was a group of 8-10 riders that stayed intact, breaking off the front. My legs were screaming and I just barely managed to hold on to a first pack of 20 or 30 riders. Another 4 or 5 riders behind me also managed to sneak on. I wanted to throw my hands into the air at this point, I finally made the first pack at the Josh! However, there was still 24 miles of 27 miles total to go and last year I got dropped from my initial group on the long second hill.
There isn’t much time for recovery between the first and second hill, less than 10-minutes, and it’s especially short if you’re working on the front of your group. Last year I buried myself before the second hill trying to catch the pack in front of us and had nothing left for the second hill. This year I sat in towards the back and let the others do the work. There were several racers that seemed a little freaked out by the breakaway being 8-10 people large, and they were doing a lot of work. In fact, I found it somewhat hard just sitting in and I began to doubt that I’d be able to make it up the second climb.
This second hill climbs in steps, with a little room for recovery in between. It is also the longest climb, taking a good 10 minutes from beginning to end. Luckily the pace seemed much easier once we started climbing. This was my kind of group! It was hard going over the first two steps, but manageable. We also started picking up riders that had been dropped off of the breakaway group, but I’m not exactly sure how many. The last kicker near the top of the hill is the steepest, but I was ready for it this year after pre-riding the course. It was the only part of the course the I used my little ring for, and I thought my head was going to explode as I worked to maintain contact over the top. As the climb flattened out we picked up a ton of speed, and the pace stayed darn hard. In the immortal words of Jens Voigt, my legs were screaming to stop, and my mind was saying “shut up legs and do what I tell you to do!”
The race was pretty uneventful for the next several miles. The long descent was an awesome break, and we took it especially cautiously on the wet roads. The long straight climb out of West Stockbridge was the easiest of the day, likely due to a moderate headwind that kept the pace on the front in check.
As we rode through Stockbridge I was feeling really strong and I began moving closer to the front. We were again very cautious and took the 90-degree left-hander coming out of town at almost a painfully slow pace. I was lucky to be near the front because the two guys in front of me attacked coming out of the turn and into the hill. For some stupid reason I must have thought I was Alberto Contador because I countered their move as we crushed it up the steep 10% grade at the beginning of the climb. This ended up being a 500W 1-minute effort and I nearly got dropped because of it. Luckily their attack was short-lived and we eased up significantly once we hit the long false flat at the top of the climb.
No one attacked in the final few miles before the last climb by Stockbridge Bowl. When we finally got to the final climb things got chaotic. Some people attacked from the middle of the pack while others cranked out a steady pace. I got a bit anxious and followed one of the early attacks. I quickly realized that this was a mistake and eased off just before heading too much into the red zone. I maintained contact over the top of the climb and across the false flat past Tanglewood, but our group had split into pieces, with the front part being 30 meters or so ahead. We each made some big pulls and kept things tight all the way to the finish.
As I got to the transition zone I was panicked not to see my brother waiting right there to take the wristband handoff. It was a minor blooper only costing us about 5 seconds, but it’s amazing how that feels like an eternity at the end of a bike race. The bike leg time doesn’t end until the paddler crosses the timing mat, and it’s painful to see your hard-earned seconds waste away. Another racer in my group must’ve stood there for a minute before finally making his handoff. I would have cried.
The results have me at
Canoe Leg and Running Leg
Dad and Shawn paddled well in the canoe, finishing in almost 57 minutes exactly in a slightly slower than average year for the paddlers. Shawn reportedly took 10 seconds to run the 200 meters from the handoff to the canoe, shattering the world record of 19.3 seconds and improving my bike split. Solid S-man.
Shawn went on to make a perfect tennis ball throw (with the wristband) at the canoe-run transition, with Todd making a clean catch and keeping his shoes dry. Todd went on to finish the run in about 42 minutes even. This was good enough for 39th place in a year where super high humidity (we’re talking 90%+) took a nasty toll.
Our family team finished in
Data Analysis
My goal for the race was to get into the first pack over the first climb and hold on to the finish. Before the race I was trying to figure out how much of an effort this would require, and I now have the answer. Starting from about 10th wheel at the 90-degree turn coming out of town, it was a 400W (5.33W/kg) for ~3m20s effort to get into the first pack. This comes after the initial crit-like sprint through town which seems to be easier for some people than others. I tend to recover quickly from very short peaky efforts on flat courses and this part of the race was easy for me. In contrast, Erica (who weighs a lot less than me) thought that the pace was super hard through town. If we were to take out the initial sprint through town Erica would probably have climbed up the first hill faster.
The first hill was my hardest effort of the race, but the last hill was close as everyone gives 100% maximum effort on tired legs in a long sprint to the finish. The long second hill was a very peaky climb. Average power was relatively low but normalized power was much higher.
Average power was 216W with normalized power at 285W for the duration of the race. This is a VI (norm ÷ avg.) of 1.32. A VI of 1.32 is on the low side for a road race and closer ressembles most crit races I’d done. I think this is due to the race being short and the overall time actually meaning something unlike most USCF road races where the pace slows down dramatically between hills.
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