Race Report: 2013 Black Hills Circuit Race in Honor of Sean McCormick

Category 3/4     
Boyds, MD
Number of starters: 78
Road-Results Predictor: 61st

Course description: Course was a 1.5 mile on rolling terrain in clockwise direction. One short, small ring climb. Lots of twists and an uphill sprint finish, all within a great park setting. Yellow/centerline rule in effect.

Weather: cloudy and overcast, start was around 40 degrees


The Climb

This is going to be another of Chuck’s ‘would’ve could’ve should’ve’ excuse filled race report. We entered the park with plenty of time for the race only to find an ambulance on the course working on an Evo rider in the CAT 5 race. My nerves went hay wire, thinking back to what others have told me the scene was for my race almost a year ago next month. After a few minutes of shaky hands, sweaty palms, we found out the guy was going to be okay after a short trip to the hospital. (Side note: we got an email last night, from the rider, saying he was home and doing well). 

For the next couple of hours we watched some of the racing while Dana got prepared for the Women’s 1/2/3 race. Got to hang out with some fellow US Military Cycling Teammates; Jim Weinstein, Sunny Gills, Scott and Katy Giles. My race was immediately following Dana’s so I decided to head out and get a few laps in to warm-up. I had pre-ridden the course on Saturday so I was already familiar with what was in store for today.

Quick pre-race strategy: The race would start out in the parking lot, right turn and then immediately had about a 30 second climb (.2 miles) around 8-12% grade. I had grabbed a 28 cog so I could climb in my 53. Then there was a sharp right turn with a winding road down to another small incline. I figured that at the top of the climb some folks would attempt to rest and jam up the turn, while others would carry the momentum down the backside. On my pre-ride, I was able to ride the entire course pretty hard and never touch the brakes. After the small incline there was another sharp left turn, more winding roads, another left turn, then the road would bend back to the climb, total of 1.5 miles. I knew that the climbs would be Zone 6 (anaerobic) and the flats zone 1. So my race should pan out to be about 50% Active Recovery and 30% Anaerobic Capacity, just like a crit.
How the race played out from my vantage point: 

It was hard to tell the total number of riders but it was close to 60. We got to the first climb pacing around 16 mph and 600 watts. It was jammed pack, lap one and I was having to make left and right maneuvers to get around guys who either couldn’t climb, wrong gear, didn’t like the tight quarters. Made it to the top and was correct, log jam.


Corner finally clearing

Finally got around them and to the flats, but it took very little effort to be back in the pack. Rinse and repeat the last few lines 13 more times. The only other little bit of info; I could not believe how much I had to us the brakes. Every time we would come to a little climb the full accordion effect would occur and I had to apply the brakes. At 200 lbs the last thing you want to do is brake before a climb. Tactical mistake number one. I was just field fodder. I must have missed the part that I should be racing and not just sitting in. I was conserving my energy to do nothing more than a pack finish. I am very disappointed in my lack of racing. I remember thinking on the fourth lap remaining that if I was on the front, I had the power to go off the front. But I did nothing to get there. I continued to sit in.


The last lap I finally decided to do something. I started moving up from probably around 50th. I was pushed to the edge of the double-yellow line due to the five or six riders across. Apparently there were several well represented teams that decided that the yellow-line rule did not apply to them as three (on the same team) passed clearly to the left. Interesting. 

How to stay within the rules and still move forward if there was a sift flowing of unimpeded riders on the left, but I digress. STAYING WITH IN THE RULES, I continued moving forward as I SAFELY could. Finally we came to the bottom of the climb, the road opened up and I made great Finishline Poster Filler for the 30 guys in front and to the right of me. The sad part is this is a great race for someone like me; it plays to my power and minimizes my limiters. Two good parts: Rubberside down and beat road-results. As we always say, if it didn't happen of Strava it didn't happen, so here is the link.


By the numbers:
Duration: 52:36
Normalized Power: 357
Distance: 20.56 mi
Power: Max 999 Avg 243 watts
Heart Rate: Max 183 Avg 153 bpm
Speed: Max 35.4 Avg 23.5 mph


Good decisions: I participated; better race prep
Bad decisions: positioning for the start of the race, not racing, just riding

Overall finish: 32nd.  Well officially even though the picture above of the finish line 374 was 21st and two guys I know for a fact I passed are listed 29th and 30th.  Another reason to be in the top 5.

 

2013 Lessons to learn:

• Race, don't participate
• Get to the front of the race as soon as possible 

Thoughts for 2014:

• Get to the front of the race as soon as possible
• Use the climb and the follow on flat to get some space on the group
• Be in a position to make a decision to go off the front with 3-5 laps left
• Use Sufferfest Revolver on the CT as a main training aid in Jan / Feb / Mar.  My prediction was correct 42% active recovery, 34% anaerobic capacity.

Power Distribution Chart

Race Report: 2013 Shamrock Criterium

Category 3/4

Virginia Beach, VA

Number of starters:  50

Course description:  40 minutes, flat, four corners. 

Weather:  cool and clear, around 60 degrees

How the race played out from my vantage point:

This year I changed things up a little then last year.  I had an issue with my race wheels last year, so this year they were on the bike prior to the warm-up.  Did a really good warm-up and had timed things about right.  This included getting to the race with plenty of time and not rolling in 15 minutes before the registration closes.   With 20 minutes to race time I went out on the course to do a few laps, and they were already lining up.  So, like last year, I was now I was lining up dead last.  NOTE:  first bad decision.

Looking at last year’s numbers and this year’s, they are almost identical, including my weight, back down to 202 lbs.  So again, the race started off very fast!  The first 10 minutes the average speed was just less than 29 mph.  I was tail gunning trying to move forward unfortunately due to my bad positioning with the start, I was trying to bridge between guys getting shelled off the back.  Not a winning strategy.

I never gained much ground and was on the back of the pack as long as I could hold on.  Given that the average power for the first half of the race was around 325 watts, I should have been able to stay on.  But I finally got detached and found myself alone.  After a few laps I caught a Conte’s rider, James Schaefer, and we took turns pacing around the course.  Finally the lead group came around and we reattached.  By this time I was basically cooked, instead of coming back midway in the pack I tried to hop on the tail end, apparently learning nothing from being there in the beginning.  I hung on a few laps then dropped off and promptly my race was over, ending up 32^nd of 50.  So road-results was close, which really sucks.  The worst part of it all, is having the data from last year, there is no reason I should not have stayed and bettered by 18^th place finish last year.

Like last year, poor luck in the beginning and tactical failure at the end.

   

Good decisions:  I raced; better race prep
Bad decisions:  positioning for the start of the race

Overall finish:  32th.

Thoughts for 2014:

1.)   This race will be fast, anticipate at 28-30 mph for the first 10 minutes.  For me at 202 lbs, that is a 340 watt NP effort.  3.74 w/kg effort

2.)    Course is flat with 4 corners – Cassette selection 11/2x

3.)    Va Beach riders line up early, anticipate being at the line by 15 minutes before

4.)    Trainer warm-up (yes there are roads out of the park, but pretty busy)

2013 Cycling Season

Over the next couple of days I will be updating my blog to talk about a few items in preparation for the 2013 Race Season.  This year I want to use the blog to accomplish a couple of objectives.

First, accountability   Yes, accountability.  If I am laying out every aspect of the season, then I have to execute.  There is a great story that Chris Carmichael tells about when LA was coming back from cancer.  The way Chris tells it, LA whispered something.  Chris leans forward and says, "What?".  LA repeats, "I want to win the Tour de France".  Chris replies in a loud voice, "You want to win the Tour?", LA immediate hushes him as if this is some big secret.  Chris later uses this as a learning point, you have to setup your objectives and be accountable to others.  Tell them what you are going to do.  So this will be my way of doing that.  Here goes:  "I will podium in 2013."

Second, I have tons of tools that I us to map my season, WKO+, TrainingPeaks, etc. I really have never "journalled" a race season, I have for many other items, but never cycling.  So this will be my Journal, warts and all.

Upcoming Blog Entries

• 2012 Year in Review
• 2013 Race Calendar
• My Objectives and How I am going to get there
• Nutrition
• Efficiency
• Team
• BTC
• KyleCoaching

Race Report: 2012 Tour of Page County Stage Race

2012 Tour of Page County Stage Race

Category 3/4

Luray, VA

Starters: 74

This was supposed to be three event stage race.  Due to the storm on Friday night, the road race was cancelled.  So instead we headed out for a few hours of hill climbing.

Day two was the time trial and the Criterium.  The TT report is below; I did not do the Criterium.  It was very technical; the temperature was peaking at the high 90s and decided that this was not the crit for me to really get back into the swing of things with. 

Luray Caverns Time Trial

The course was smooth, started on a fairly steep descent then entered a good set of rollers.   This was an out and back 9 mile TT.  The first half the elevation loss was greater than the gain so overall it averaged more of descent.  There were several turns that made it easier to break it down into quarters since there was not marking other than the actual course.

Weather was pretty warm; temperature at the start was 79 degrees.  There was no wind to speak of during the race.

The plan was to use my LT from prior to the wreck, around 300 watts.  I set my Garmin for time, power zones, distance and cadence; learning from the last TT.  The plan was to shot for less than 24 minutes.  So I wanted to stay in Zone 4 and hit each of the quarter segments at about 5 min and 40 seconds each.   I did not pre-ride the course but drove it several times.  Did a good warm-up for about 45 minutes but had to wait a little while for my start time.

I had a good start and a good descent.  Scott Giles voice continued to ring in my head, don’t rest until you have the bike back up to speed on the climbs.  So that is what I did across each roller.  I averaged about 25.13 mph on the outbound and hit each of my segments on time.  The return was more of a gradual uphill but was able to stay in zone (for the most part) and hit my times.  I ended up at 23:57 just barely under 24 minutes.  I had seriously miscalculated my goal; I should have been aiming more towards 20 minutes.  23:57 got me 41st out of 74, at 4 minutes down on the GC.

Stats:

Normalized power:  first half, 305w (average 264w); second half, 283 w (average 265w)

Average Heart Rate: first half, 171 bpm; second half, 180 bpm

Average Cadence:  80, really tried to pay attention to the cadence but very little of the race was flat; so this is actually more of a climbing cadence.  The area that was “flat” the cadence was closer to 88, still lower than my 90-95 goal.

VI:  1.11

Criterium

I did not have a good feeling about the crit, there were several pretty good descents and 9 turns.  I decided to bail on the crit.

NEXT EVENTS:

2012 Hagerstown Challenge Criterium (July 7)

RGS Title/Prosperity Mortgage Chantilly Criterium 2012 (July 8)

Race Report: 2012 Church Creek Time Trial

2012 Church Creek Time Trial

Category 4

Cambridge, MD

Starters: 22

The course was smooth, flat, scenic, but was not well marked with 20 and 30k markers but did have with a wide shoulder available on most of it.  Race course was about 12 km to a right turn,  then another right at about 25 km mark, then 1 last right turn giving us about 6 km to the finish,  There was a 5 km left sign and a 1 km left sign.

Weather was pretty warm.  Start of the race was in the low 80s.  Sunny with a pretty strong head wind on two of the segments.

The plan was to use my LT from prior to the wreck, around 300 watts.  I did not do a good job of checking the wind for the entire course so I broke it down into 10km segments.  I set my Garmin for two screens only Power Zones and time.  The plan was a sub 1 hour 40k.  So I wanted to stay in Zone 4 and hit each of the 10km marks in under 15 minutes.  My plan was to make up time in segment 3.  Meaning that if I crossed 20k mark (10-20km segment) in 15:20, then I knew I needed to make up 20 seconds on segment 3.  I wanted to use 1 and 2 to settle in.  4 is always faster for me because of the adrenaline rush at the end.

I had a good start, and crossed the 10 km at 14:38.  I did realize a little too late that I had a tail wind, but I did keep it in Zone 4 so I probably would not have changed that much.  First big problem, either did not see or there was not a 20 km marker.  (note to self:  add distance to the Garmin TT

screen).  I estimated where the 20km should have been based on my time being right around 30 minutes.  But this destroyed my timing strategy because it was based on distance.  I was pacing fairly well, but could tell my power was decreasing to lower LT, higher Tempo.   After about 35 minutes I could no longer hold a good aero position.  This had more to do about not being

use to the position then bike fit. 

Next problem was the lack of 30km marker, so once again having to guestimate my time and had no idea if I was over or under my plan.  I figured based on my decreasing power  numbers that I was over.  Got to a 5 km marker and knew that I was over time but got the bike back up to my zone goal and finished up.  Overall time was poor, 1:03:52.

Stats:

Normalized power:  245 watts (55 watts lower than my goal) Average Heart

Rate: 172 Average Cadence:  76

Here are my splits:

10k - NP 261   HR 171

20k - NP 239  HR 173

30k - NP 241   HR 173

40k - NP 228  HR 172

Feedback questions from (Jim Weinstein)

Q.  Was your HR in Zone 4 also??  

A.  I have not really gone out and did a field test on HR.  But using Friel's standard and have an actual max HR (203 in a crit), for this race I would have been about 95% in Threshold according to HR.

Q.  Also, how far away was your avg power from Norm Power?? 

A.  My average power was 240 and my normalized power was 245.  So within 5 watts.

Q.  How was your warmup?? 

A.  Did 30 minutes of warm-up plus a 20 minute ride to the start point.  The warm-up was okay but should have used the structured one that I normally use.

Q.  Did you stay well hydrated?  

A.  Drank 1 bottle on the bike.  Straight water should have added cytomax.  BUT my prerace hydration was lacking.  Really did not drink my normal days' worth the day before

Q.  And what was your VI for the race? 

A.  1.02

I tried to keep the cadence up but was not successful, so I just went with what seemed to be more comfortable.  I normally have a cadence of upper 90s at LT.  Why I could only mash the gears?  Not sure.

Overall I am trying to race back to fitness.  Very concerned about my average cadence, this is a significant drop in the last 70 days.  I thought that power was going to be down, that is just a function of a tragic loss in fitness over the last 70 days.

17th Place over all.  Winning time:  54:25.  Majority of the group:  10 riders between 59-1:01