Course Map:
To refresh, my priorities for today's race:
1. Don't crash
2. Don't get dropped
3. Attack climbs, 1st lap - thin the pack
4. Conserve Energy - Lap 2
5. Attack at every chance
The day started early with a check-in at 8 am for a race at almost 3pm. There were 6 other races to be held today. Today's race groups are broken up differently than in the U.S. Regardless of ability, if you have a JCF (Japan Cycling Federation) team, you race in a particular group. For the rest of us unaffiliated type folks, we're in a separate group. Once they've done that, they break the race down into distances and you just sign up for the difficulty you'd like to take part in (today was 1, 2, or 3 laps for us unaffiliated, and 2, 3, or 5 laps for the JCF teams). That means, my group was 3 laps @ 12.3 km a piece of all unaffiliated riders. Every man for himself. This says absolutely nothing about ability, just affiliation.
I finished my warm up pretty early to make sure I got a good start point. The field for my event was 75 people. This course is notorious for crashes, so I wanted to be up front. After the first 300 meters the course heads downhill into the curvy up/down sections which would surely bring the crashing.
The gun went off on time, and we were off. I pulled into the pack around 10-15th wheel and we started the descent. Out of the third turn I heard the crash behind me. I don't know how many people dropped on the crash, but it sure sounded rough. The pace was extremely fast for the turns we were navigating. With the pack riding 3 wide at times around these areas, I was routinely finding myself riding the gutter. I didn't even know the course HAD a gutter until today, and I've done 18 laps of the course in the last 3 weeks.
Once I got my senses about me, I settled into a rhythym, and started to think about my goals. As we rounded the corner to Bridge-to-Bridge climb, I found out the pack was not excited about climbing. The pack compressed on the climb at a comfortable pace. This got me to thinking. So as we rounded the flat on the way to Climb #1, I pulled along the right hand side from about 10 wheels back and gapped the pack by about 50 yards to hit the base of the climb. I took off at the climb, knowing we had about 1 1/2 minutes of descending to recover. Within 10-15 seconds of descending the group collected on me. I pulled for a little, flicked the elbow and slid left. HAH! A pack of unaffiliated riders working together? No chance. This is also the point I looked down at the Powertap and said "CRAP! It turned off in auto-sleep at the start line!" A quick flick of the finger and off we went.
When we hit the long 5% grade approaching the big climb, I soft pedaled with great fear. If I slip slide too far, I'm getting dropped when we go up hill. Fortunately, we were still weeding out some of the pack fodder so when we started uphill, the folks at the front began to disintegrate, leaving the strong to slow down to navigate the carnage. I crested the top back in about 15th wheel for the descent. Top of the climb, 6 minutes over 350 watts, normalized 370.
Coming off the descent into the end of lap 1, I went to goal #4. Conserve energy. For this I sat on the back as well as I could. As soon as we hit the south side of the course and the turns got going, the 3 or 4 folks in front of me were gapping like mad every time we started going up, so I slowly worked my way up the wheels. Lap 2 was noticeably slower on the climbs, and this allowed me to move up 2-3 wheels each climb. By the time we hit the long climb, I was sitting about 7-8th wheel. When we crested this climb, two riders took off, two more attached themselves. The riders in front of me were toast. I knew if those 4 got away now, there'd be no catching them. Off I went, the three in front of me latched on behind me now and we bridged over. Little did I know we just broke away completely. Our 8 would be the only 8 to come across "together." Everything behind us was carnage of unaffiliated riders.
Lap #3 was time to attack and see what I could do. I came across the start/finish to commence lap #3 as the tail-end. This was where things got interesting for me. With 8 completely unaffiliated riders with no one in sight behind us, no one wanted to work - including me. Everyone was still fresh enough to chase if someone went, which also meant no one would break. We hit every climb well below maximal effort, knowing the money was going to be made on the final climb if anywhere. Even the descending got slower. Then, we hit the 5% grade approaching the final climb. One rider hopped out in front and set off at a blistering pace. Even 4 wheels back I was at threshold steady. That did that rider in for now, we set off up hill. I held on 4th or 5th wheel coming up part I and II of this climb. When we hit part III it was time to see who else still had legs. I pushed everything I had left and pushed up the hill. Only 2 other riders stuck as we crested the hill side by side. I waved at them to say "let's go" but they immediately backed off to wait for the group to head to the finish. BAH! Heading downhill into the wind, I knew I was not going to be able to hold off the pack of 7, so I set off steady and slid on 3rd wheel as they came by. You could see everyone sizing each other up to see who would try to get away.
So, I said, what the heck! I'll try. 1.2 km from the end I took off the right side and got a break. Unfortunately, my break - downhill getting ready to make 2 - 180 degree turns to climb for the last 450 meters to the finish - was for naught. I took corner one and they were on me like mad. I did what I could to hop back on but there was just no way it was happening. We climbed up the hill as rider #7 passed me and I looked back to see no one behind me. This was the first time I realized we were broken from the pack.
I pushed what I had left in me - which was very little, and crossed the finish line in 8th place. So, I didn't win, but here are the goals I accomplished:
1 - Didn't crash
2 - Didn't get dropped (in fact, stuck with the breakaway)
3 - Attacked climb #1 and helped thin the pack on lap 1, as well as bridging the gap on lap #2 to complete the breakaway group
4 - Conserved energy for 3/4 of lap #2, until having to bridge
5 - Attacked on lap 3, on giant climb and 1.2 km from finish where it could have been most beneficial.
So? 8th place, and I won! A successful training race for the first time out this season.
Race, On Power Tap:
Duration: 54:08
Work: 877 kJ
TSS: 80.1 (intensity factor 0.942)
Norm Power: 325
VI: 1.2
Distance: 31.153 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 843 270 watts
Heart rate: 143 184 174 bpm
Cadence: 24 128 93 rpm
Speed: 12.3 60.2 34.5 kph
This doesn't tell the whole story since we're missing 6 km of the race, but it probably doesn't change much - first six KM of laps 2 and 3 were right around 275 watts avg, normalized at 310-315.
Vital statistics:
Yesterday's
ATL: 108.4
CTL: 116.4
Today's TSB: 8
Power file, missing some data, but you can get the gist of it.
tom_WestJapan3182007.wko
Here's a few pics from the family of the race.
I thought just showing up with the power meter would be effective, but I didn't know they were going to just lay down!
Pre race, Pre warm-up
Yep, that's too big a gap. No way to get away here though, about ready to go screaming back down hill.
The other 7 riders are now ahead of me, and no one behind me so I let off the gas. Or, I was just sucking wind.
To refresh, my priorities for today's race:
1. Don't crash
2. Don't get dropped
3. Attack climbs, 1st lap - thin the pack
4. Conserve Energy - Lap 2
5. Attack at every chance
The day started early with a check-in at 8 am for a race at almost 3pm. There were 6 other races to be held today. Today's race groups are broken up differently than in the U.S. Regardless of ability, if you have a JCF (Japan Cycling Federation) team, you race in a particular group. For the rest of us unaffiliated type folks, we're in a separate group. Once they've done that, they break the race down into distances and you just sign up for the difficulty you'd like to take part in (today was 1, 2, or 3 laps for us unaffiliated, and 2, 3, or 5 laps for the JCF teams). That means, my group was 3 laps @ 12.3 km a piece of all unaffiliated riders. Every man for himself. This says absolutely nothing about ability, just affiliation.
I finished my warm up pretty early to make sure I got a good start point. The field for my event was 75 people. This course is notorious for crashes, so I wanted to be up front. After the first 300 meters the course heads downhill into the curvy up/down sections which would surely bring the crashing.
The gun went off on time, and we were off. I pulled into the pack around 10-15th wheel and we started the descent. Out of the third turn I heard the crash behind me. I don't know how many people dropped on the crash, but it sure sounded rough. The pace was extremely fast for the turns we were navigating. With the pack riding 3 wide at times around these areas, I was routinely finding myself riding the gutter. I didn't even know the course HAD a gutter until today, and I've done 18 laps of the course in the last 3 weeks.
Once I got my senses about me, I settled into a rhythym, and started to think about my goals. As we rounded the corner to Bridge-to-Bridge climb, I found out the pack was not excited about climbing. The pack compressed on the climb at a comfortable pace. This got me to thinking. So as we rounded the flat on the way to Climb #1, I pulled along the right hand side from about 10 wheels back and gapped the pack by about 50 yards to hit the base of the climb. I took off at the climb, knowing we had about 1 1/2 minutes of descending to recover. Within 10-15 seconds of descending the group collected on me. I pulled for a little, flicked the elbow and slid left. HAH! A pack of unaffiliated riders working together? No chance. This is also the point I looked down at the Powertap and said "CRAP! It turned off in auto-sleep at the start line!" A quick flick of the finger and off we went.
When we hit the long 5% grade approaching the big climb, I soft pedaled with great fear. If I slip slide too far, I'm getting dropped when we go up hill. Fortunately, we were still weeding out some of the pack fodder so when we started uphill, the folks at the front began to disintegrate, leaving the strong to slow down to navigate the carnage. I crested the top back in about 15th wheel for the descent. Top of the climb, 6 minutes over 350 watts, normalized 370.
Coming off the descent into the end of lap 1, I went to goal #4. Conserve energy. For this I sat on the back as well as I could. As soon as we hit the south side of the course and the turns got going, the 3 or 4 folks in front of me were gapping like mad every time we started going up, so I slowly worked my way up the wheels. Lap 2 was noticeably slower on the climbs, and this allowed me to move up 2-3 wheels each climb. By the time we hit the long climb, I was sitting about 7-8th wheel. When we crested this climb, two riders took off, two more attached themselves. The riders in front of me were toast. I knew if those 4 got away now, there'd be no catching them. Off I went, the three in front of me latched on behind me now and we bridged over. Little did I know we just broke away completely. Our 8 would be the only 8 to come across "together." Everything behind us was carnage of unaffiliated riders.
Lap #3 was time to attack and see what I could do. I came across the start/finish to commence lap #3 as the tail-end. This was where things got interesting for me. With 8 completely unaffiliated riders with no one in sight behind us, no one wanted to work - including me. Everyone was still fresh enough to chase if someone went, which also meant no one would break. We hit every climb well below maximal effort, knowing the money was going to be made on the final climb if anywhere. Even the descending got slower. Then, we hit the 5% grade approaching the final climb. One rider hopped out in front and set off at a blistering pace. Even 4 wheels back I was at threshold steady. That did that rider in for now, we set off up hill. I held on 4th or 5th wheel coming up part I and II of this climb. When we hit part III it was time to see who else still had legs. I pushed everything I had left and pushed up the hill. Only 2 other riders stuck as we crested the hill side by side. I waved at them to say "let's go" but they immediately backed off to wait for the group to head to the finish. BAH! Heading downhill into the wind, I knew I was not going to be able to hold off the pack of 7, so I set off steady and slid on 3rd wheel as they came by. You could see everyone sizing each other up to see who would try to get away.
So, I said, what the heck! I'll try. 1.2 km from the end I took off the right side and got a break. Unfortunately, my break - downhill getting ready to make 2 - 180 degree turns to climb for the last 450 meters to the finish - was for naught. I took corner one and they were on me like mad. I did what I could to hop back on but there was just no way it was happening. We climbed up the hill as rider #7 passed me and I looked back to see no one behind me. This was the first time I realized we were broken from the pack.
I pushed what I had left in me - which was very little, and crossed the finish line in 8th place. So, I didn't win, but here are the goals I accomplished:
1 - Didn't crash
2 - Didn't get dropped (in fact, stuck with the breakaway)
3 - Attacked climb #1 and helped thin the pack on lap 1, as well as bridging the gap on lap #2 to complete the breakaway group
4 - Conserved energy for 3/4 of lap #2, until having to bridge
5 - Attacked on lap 3, on giant climb and 1.2 km from finish where it could have been most beneficial.
So? 8th place, and I won! A successful training race for the first time out this season.
Race, On Power Tap:
Duration: 54:08
Work: 877 kJ
TSS: 80.1 (intensity factor 0.942)
Norm Power: 325
VI: 1.2
Distance: 31.153 km
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 843 270 watts
Heart rate: 143 184 174 bpm
Cadence: 24 128 93 rpm
Speed: 12.3 60.2 34.5 kph
This doesn't tell the whole story since we're missing 6 km of the race, but it probably doesn't change much - first six KM of laps 2 and 3 were right around 275 watts avg, normalized at 310-315.
Vital statistics:
Yesterday's
ATL: 108.4
CTL: 116.4
Today's TSB: 8
Power file, missing some data, but you can get the gist of it.
tom_WestJapan3182007.wko
Here's a few pics from the family of the race.
I thought just showing up with the power meter would be effective, but I didn't know they were going to just lay down!
Pre race, Pre warm-up
Yep, that's too big a gap. No way to get away here though, about ready to go screaming back down hill.
The other 7 riders are now ahead of me, and no one behind me so I let off the gas. Or, I was just sucking wind.
on March 18, 2007, 11:00 pm
Must be good to get going with the racing. I also find setting mini goals within a race or at least having a plan a really good way to take something away.
Some good numbers there and a great shot of the course!
Cheers
Alex
Reply to this comment