Good news never lasts

Well after a dream month of training and racing I had 4 days of hard riding planned for the easter weekend and then a taper for my next big race - Blayney to Bathurst - a 110km race through the west of regional New South Wales.

I set up a training base in Wollongong where I was in easy reach of 3 good climbs and lots of great terrain to train on. Mother nature stepped in a bucketed down a good dose of rain and flog so I was trapped in my hotel room for the entire weekend.

Bit of a bummer but these things happen. Nevertheless I have a day off tomorrow and am planning a whopper ride in the order of 180km over some nasty hilly terrain to test the legs and get some good interval training up some nice climbs.

I hope the weather holds out for me....

First blood.

Nailed my first win for the season. 30km criterium at Heffron park. What made it special was the way in which it was done. I attacked with 10 laps to go, just put my head down and pounded away. Managed to drag along one friend who just wheel sucked and didn't help at all - so with 8 laps to go I attacked him and got him off my wheel. Now i'm in no mans land with a pack of angry riders chasing after me.

One guy managed to bridge the gap to me and dragged old WheelSuck with him - we worked well together and kept the gap on the bunch. Then another rider bridged the gap and we had a powerful trio - and one WheelSuck. With 5 laps to go I was starting to get pretty tired. The last guy who joined us did a few big turns, and we lost the other worker - but not WheelSuck.

2 laps to go and we knew we had it in the bag. I held second wheel coming onto the straight with WheelSuck glued behind me. Started my sprint a little late as I was hoping WheelSuck would try and bolt and go on his own - but true to his name - he just sucked.

Wound up a big sprint and thought I had it in the bag easy, but ole WheelSuck was well rested and started to make ground rapidly - i continued on my sprint and manage to hold him off by around a wheel length.

Great victory - couldn't be happier. NP 314W which i'm very happy about. Commissaire's suitably bumped us up a category so we'll be riding with the fast boys next time...

White vertical line shows where I attacked!!!

You can see where I had to restart my sprint - note the spike in cadence! 125rpm, peak power ~ 1100w

Felt really stretched out and flat on the bars, could still generate decent power, bless that 130mm stem!

Pretty happy with that sprint!

To the victor go the spoils... B grade next time!

Perceived Exertion - Update

Mt Keira - 0.22.59 - pacing by Perceived Exertion - Update.

Almost a minute better than my previous attempt using pacing by Power.

Felt very weird not having a guide of some sort to reference back to. I decided just to pace at an uncomfortable level for as long as i could. I had no idea of power or speed data - only cadence, which i decided to keep as high as i could.

16 minutes in and i blew up, I simply went too hard too soon, by this stage I was barely turning the cranks over... after a minute or so, my legs started to feel good again and i got into a easy rhythm and continued up. After a minute or two I looked down at my watch and noticed that i would probably come close to my previous best time, so i decided to dig in for the last kilometre or so and try and at least match my previous time.

So what does it all mean?

1. Pacing by FTP is only good if your FTP is correct!
2. Pacing by power boxes you in and doesn't let out the inner mongrel.
3. Blowups from perceived exertion are to be expected, but may be worth the punt.

I think there is a middle ground somewhere in all of this. Sometimes the power meter has to be ignored - and be used more as a reference not a limiter. This probably holds true for short bursts like the Mt Keira TT which is only 20 odd minutes of effort. I would expect that power pacing would be far more valuable for longer durations.

- Update: Well the power graph below tells a strange story, there really isn't a significant jump up in power between the two passes i made up Mt Keira. What is startling is the large variation in power throughout the climb - both graphs have identical smoothing!

1/ - 12/3/08 - 22.59min

2/ - 06/2/08 - 23.50

You can see on the `fast` graph where I bonked, and the wild fluctuations in power and speed. The second chart is more `flat lined` where power and speed are both fairly constant - probably something not conducive to a fast time.

The unscientific best pacing test.

I've been wondering over the past weeks whether pacing by power can sometimes not lead to the best overall time for a Time Trial.

I'm going to conduct a crude experiment using pacing by RPE (Perceived exertion), Power and Heart Rate on my weekly hill time trial up Mt Keira. I have plenty of baseline data on my usual times up this climb.

I'm going to record the times with the powertap regardless, but just cover up the screen with tape.

I'll post the findings here... I've got a funny feeling the results may surprise!

D

Return to Crit

Headed out for an afternoon race yesterday to test the legs. Felt fine sitting in the bunch just turning the legs over. With 5 laps to go i got a nasty cramp in my left quad and couldn't apply any power. Took a lap out and rejoined - but same thing happened again with 3 to go. A bit peeved as I probably could have got a result.

At least there will always be next week.

NP only 245W

25km TT - PB

44 minutes flat. 

Bit slower than what I was expecting, but over a 3 minute PB which i'm pretty happy with. Course was dead and very wet - and the Powertap started to play up with bad dropouts and finally died the last 4 km home. (not sure what the problem was as it is working fine now... perhaps some water got in?)

From the data I did get, it looks like I averaged 300w NP. A good base to start from, but i want to get down to flat 40's.

Sickness and Health

Strep throat this week... Nothing major, but it does have an impact on body function.

Was toying with the idea of having a rest day, but decided to do a different club ride...

Big Mistake.

20 riders, most of them A grade riders or Neo-Pro's. I was hanging off the back holding on for dear life.. not feeling the best.

Managed to nudge out 80km at 254W NP !!!!!! And this was me hiding at the back of the pack. Only one serious climb in there - and the legs started to come alive towards the end - was able to pick up the pace from 300 -> 380W quite comfortably.

Tomorrow I had planned a 43km TT, but i think I may switch that over for a 25km TT. Nice short session. My Prior PB for this course was 47.17 set back in 2004. I want to smash it tomorrow - i'm hoping for somewhere in the order of 43.00 or so... depending on how the legs feel.