Field: 60
Place: 39, in back of the main pack
Teammates: none
Friendly rivals: Nakamura-san, Nelson
Race was running about thirty minutes late so had an extra long warmup. After looking around went with the 11-23 cassette in the rear and the HED 60 in front - ended up leaving it in the big ring for the whole race.
At the start, Paula the referee joked about a 43 mile breakaway, but a couple of guys whom I knew did that last week at Patterson jumped at the gun so I got up there and we started a paceline. There was one other guy from Fusion Sport in there who either did not know how to ride a paceline or was trying to disrupt it because he did not slow down any when he pulled off and really did not rest and was not contributing much after the first couple of pulls so after six minutes we got caught. Stayed in the top five for the first half hour of the race and the effort felt somewhat like a flat crit, with a AP of 206 and a NP of 240. I looked back and saw we had most of the field intact in spite of some rolling hills so I drifted to the middle of the pack and the difference was pretty big - AP of 137 and NP of 168 for about an hour. The effectiveness of the draft of the pack was so large that I spent most of the time when going uphill alternating braking with a few pedal strokes here and there. Since the centerline rule was in effect the whole race and the field filled the one lane roads, it was pretty hard to move up so I just enjoyed the ride. The next twenty minutes was on a couple of flat roads before the turn on the the four kilometer finishing straight. Spent a bit of energy fighting for position but it really didn't matter in the end, I could have done most of the passing on the overpass after the turn as it turns out. Knowing what I know now, I should have just gunned it on the overpass and take whoever could keep up with me. As it was, I braked a bit and sat behind the four guys in front. There was a lot of jockeying for position and we soon got the one kilometer sign. I was three feet from the centerline and moved to one foot from the centerline and the guy behind me complained about me cutting him off. So I pulled over and offered to let him go first but he refused. I should have waited a bit longer but figured now was as good a time as any so with about eight hundred meters to go, I jumped. I lasted five hundred meters before blowing up and getting passed by the front few guys, then the lead pack, then the second pack, and just soft pedaling over the finish line. The last seven minutes had a NP of 4.8 w/kg, which was OK, but the club ride last week was harder at the midpoint sprint. The whole race felt too easy - I tried a couple of breakaways but nothing stuck and quite a few guys were able to just wheelsuck to the end due to the non selective course. Maybe I'll try that or the two lap race next time this race is held.
T: 1:58:11
S: 37.8
C: 87
H: 170
D: 74.5 km
Pavg: 165
Pnorm: 212
TSS: 148
IF: 0.87
VI 1.29
3 comments:
missed ya out there - what's VI?
It's just normalized power divided by average power. One would expect an even paced flat time trial or longer interval to have a Variability Index of 1.0 and a hillier ride or a ride with lots of surges to have a higher Variability Index.
got it - I had a 1.23 then at Dunnigan. Lots of fireworks.
Jason D (if you didn't figure it out yet)
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