Talking about a hard Crit

Whitefish Bay  - Superweek. Men's Elite 4/5 and Masters 4/5

Well, Whitefish Bay was a hammer-fest. We all thought we were headed up to Wisconsin for a low key race but it ended up being a super fast, super serious, end of super-week kinda race.

I signed up for the Cat 4/5 Elite and the Masters race but midway through the Elite race I was thinking there was no way I would be racing later. It was hard.

I've never had an issue with starts but this time I failed to clip in properly, found myself at the back and consequently pulled about 950W trying to assert myself in the group. That's something you definitely don't want to be doing so early in a crit. After a few laps I settled into the pain and began to move up. I saw my mate Andre up ahead and decided to push for him. Reaching him in a turn I then managed to slip ahead but fully expected to see him surface sooner or later. I concentrated on holding my position and trying not to blow up. I rode the whole race in the drops. Fortunately I have become very comfortable with how my cross bike handles with road wheels and there was never a big issue.

What I did notice is that trying to get faster through the apex by pedaling early was key to not being called upon to sprint harder out of each corner. I also took the outside line through all the left handed corners so that I could carry more speed and have to sprint less. Each time we came out of the final corner we were pulling big numbers up to the start finish. I would just be looking for a wheel to hold on to and also look to pass folks on the outside since this was really an area where you could move up comfortably.

This crit was harder than any other I'd done before and I was pretty sure it was all about the corners. Take a look at the data below and you can see that there were a massive amount of surges versus the other crits I'd done. It took a pretty big toll but I managed to hang in there.

At the end I was really pretty gassed and never really managed a sprint and ended up mid-pack. At least I finished and did not disgrace myself.

Later on I actually jumped in the Masters race which was almost as tough with a similar result. This time I actually got a point! I was asserting myself much better in this latter race. I was sitting in the top ten the entire race except for the last lap - when it counted. It felt like the race was just one lap too long and I fell backward instead of pushing harder. I need to work on that.

Interesting takeaways:

1. Whitefish Elite was definitely a STRONG race. We all felt that. It was longer than we’re used to and had more slower corners to deal with

2. The additional slow corners accounted for a roughly 2:1 factor in amount of surges overall versus the next highest race. But looking at the details shows a surprising fact: there were 3.5 times as many surges in the 564-705W range as the next most demanding crit (it’s baby brother: the Whitefish Masters Race)…the next most demanding race had almost 7 times less surges (Matteson Cat 1/2/3 which was a training race) and the others had minimal amounts of these types of efforts. I think a lot of these types of surges happened in the beginning of the race causing the splits etc.

3. The higher average torque values speak to the accelerations of getting out of the corners. I certainly felt that just about every corner required a significant effort over and above that which I had been typically used to

4. Fox Grove had the highest normalized power demands of the lot (and I still sucked!) as well as the highest torque values due to the hill. How to train for this next year? Hmmm…

5. I threw in the Judson group ride to see another set of data. Obviously you cannot compare this with the crits but it is interesting in that there are a lot of surges and I think that helps train you for the crit surges….although, perhaps not the big ones.

6. Sunday was my 10th most demanding day (in terms of kJ) of the year. See below:

Last thoughts are around how the heck do I get into the top 10. I’m not sure what is the best thing to do to train for this. I know that the race tactics are essential. I needed a bit more in the gas tank in the second race otherwise I think I could have placed. I was in a very good position for most of the race but really felt the pain in the last two laps. Maybe it’s just more conditioning that I need. I know I’m making better choices about where to be during the race. Interestingly, I was reading a bit about racing crits and Carmichael says that a skilled crit racer can move up through the pack from the back in one lap without exposing himself to the wind by going around the edges. I have been using the edges but Carmichael says that there are ways to assert yourself through the pack by looking for diagonal “gaps” and forcing other riders aside. I need to think more carefully about this. He also says to practice this in practice races by starting at the back, moving to the front and repeating.

Back in business...I think

Well, after a terrible week from a training point of view I finally got on the bike on Saturday. I had the South African Springboks versus the New Zealand All Blacks Tri-Nations Rugby game to watch so I quickly got down to business. The idea was just to get in a groove and see if I could do and hour or so at a steady tempo - nothing too ambitious. So I sat in at about 200W and eventually managed 2 hours at 200W with a 10 minute cool down period...oh, I also added in a 450W 30 second effort at the end to simulate the steady state after a sprint. Since I cannot sprint on a trainer I thought I'd skip that.

I was very happy with this effort. It was pretty comfortable the whole way and, interestingly, the 6th biggest effort I've put in all year from a kJ perspective. It  burned 1,499 kJ in 2 hours which was more than most of the group rides in Chicago (aside from Judson) burn in 3 hrs. Fascinating.

Delhi-belly puts an end to this week's sessions

Well folks, it finally happened: India caught up with me. Let's just say that my training plans are a week behind due to some unplanned visits to the porcelain. I took the day off on Monday to rest from a really good 2hr indoor ride on Sunday. Then Monday night it set in and it's now Friday and I'm still as weak as a dandelion in a early morning spring breeze. Oh well, I guess it's just the way things roll here on the sub-continent. I've been coming here since October and never gotten ill from the food. Well, it seems like the monsoons bring not only rolling storms with sideways rain but also an additional layer of complexity when it comes to water-borne illnesses. So I'm trying to avoid all salads and fruits that haven't been well prepared. That's painful when you want to eat healthily but I think it was some lettuce that finally took me down. Next plan is to try and avoid malaria and dengue fever and all of those other nasties that are brought on by mosquito bites. So I guess it's just me, my hotel room and the Ritchey. Hopefully I'm good enough to get on it tomorrow for a light spin. We'll see...

How to get your first Top 10: Take two 9 hour international flights, land and race

A funny thing happened on May 15th. I arrived at O’Hare at about 1pm after two long international flights from Mumbai. I had left Mumbai at about 1am (which his when all the international flights happen to leave the city bound for Europe. It’s really a pain because it involves staying up late to catch the flight. I usually sleep pretty well (as well as one can in a narrow seat). Well, I learned a valuable thing on that flight. Funny how we’re always learning things. Number one: never, I repeat never, get the last row of business class. Always get as far forward as you possibly can. I had a massive, gear grinding, wood-cutting, chainsaw massacring snorer next to me and what felt like 4 Indian babies in stereo right behind me wailing persistently and relentlessly into the night. Needless to say, I had no sleep. Wine was the only option. Lots of it. Fortunately the Delta flight attendants didn’t hold back. But this meant that I arrived in Amsterdam rather parched and in a bit of a muddle. Second thing I learned: never forget to change into comfy clothes prior to the flight. You’d think that a guy with over 3 million lifetime flying miles would remember this but I was so caught up in a business meeting that evening that I forgot to change into jeans and a T-shirt. So I was bound to two flights in my suit and tie (OK, I removed the tie). Not a good start. The nice thing about Amsterdam is the KLM lounge which has luxurious showers for their club members. So I hastened to put my name down and managed to have a great and refreshing shower at the airport. The flight to Chicago wasn’t too bad. I had some more wine, got a few hours sleep in and the next thing I knew I was in a cab heading back to my place.




That day was the Monsters of Midway Criterium at University of Chicago and I had promised to go over to support a friend and fellow South African who was riding in the 4/5 race and then the Cat 5 race after. The race was later in the day and I got home and immediately took a shower, felt OK and was about to head out the door and off to the race when out of the corner of my eye I noticed my trusty rusty sitting there in my office. Yes, you guessed it, my bike was making eyes at me. Hmmm, I thought, what if I just took it along to the race? You know, making sure it wasn’t feeling too alone here at home. Perhaps introduce her to a few other race bikes that are bound to be lying around bored out of their minds while their riders prime themselves for the race. And what if I threw some bib shorts in a bag, perhaps a jersey, some shoes and my helmet? Yeah, WTF!



So I get to the race venue, see all the Spidermonkeys, have a quick natter and they all say to me, you’re going to get in the race right? I say, no I’m just here for support and just landed from India. I didn’t tell them that I had my bike with me. So I sauntered over to the registration desk and politely enquired: any Cat5 openings? Nope, came the reply, but you can get on the waitlist. So again, I put my name down on the infamous Cat5 waitlist. I’m a process consultant, I know that it’s very rare to have 100% of something pass first time. So I reckoned that I would be racing in a little bit.



I watched my buddy in the 4/5 race, saw a crash or two, and proceeded to warm up. I got a pretty good warm up in on my trainer. I think it was at least 20 minutes - see chart below. I was feeling OK but still VERY light headed and buzzed from lack of reasonable sleep and the time zone difference. Right now my body thought it was 4am. Weirdly, in the back of my mind, I thought that I was going to be good, actually better than good: my best.

I was sweaty when I got the call up, I got some sideline help from a friend to pin on the number and rolled up to the start finish. I got a brief lap in to check out the course and then hung out with all the other cocky Cat5 dudes. I noticed my friend Andre at the back and beckoned him over. He said the 4/5 race was pretty fast but overall he was feeling strong (he is always strong). So after the usual pre-race rigmarole we got going. I was determined to stay in the front and after racing at Matteson several times I was amply prepared for how I would assert myself on these guys. My plan was simple: Stay in the front and go early. I had checked out the finish and it was a long 200m (I think) straight, into a breeze coming out of a rather wide corner. My plan was to be on the outside with momentum and hammer as I was coming out of the corner and hit it hard all the way to the line.



The race was fine all in all. No worries of being dropped or anything. But it was plagued by the usual Cat5 sketchiness of riders zig-zagging their way down the wide boulevards. There were also folks in there who constantly yelled at us like coaches, like they knew something we didn’t. Which is really, really weird because you cannot be in Cat5 if you’ve had more than 10 races so anyone who is in there is just as rookie as you are. I wouldn’t listen to anyone yelling at me in a Cat5 race unless I he was pointing out something that I hadn’t thought of before and my brain had actually evaluated it as being useful.



Half way through there was a prime lap and I knew I did not want to sprint for it and actually it seemed that no one else wanted it too. Except for Andre who quietly put the hammer down and left us all in his wake on his way to claiming his first prime ever. Great result Andre! There were a couple of attacks and I bridged to one of these but nothing got away at all. There’s really no where to go and with the pack always having any break in sight it makes it easy for them to chase.



Well, the inevitable last lap came and we amped up the pace a little. Going into the second last corner someone right behind me decided it would be much better to complete the race skidding across the asphalt on his back with his carbon frame snapping at his heels than to actually sprint. So he came wide and could not recover before being introduced to the steep lip of the sidewalk. Carbon, bones and meat has a horrible sound when it hits the ground. Ouch!



I did exactly what I had planned, had a good line on the outside of the last corner and then jumped hard. Well, as hard as a newbie cyclist can jump. Which meant that I put down about half the watts that a Cat1/2 rider would: about 896W. I guess I had used up some fuel during the ride and on the flight over. But my jump was good enough to get me into what I thought were the top 10 riders. I was going hard, all out, I was in the zone, completely focused and then suddenly noticed that the rider in front of me was fading and I would pass him. So I decided to go around on the outside of him and then he, for whatever reason, chose to pull over to the side at the exact same time I decided to. WTF! Seriously? So I had to hit the brakes hard….did I tell you I’m racing on my cross bike with cantilever brakes? Well, I am and they suck! I hit them as hard as I could, lost several miles per hour, stopped pedaling and then shouted something very nasty to him at about 1,234 watts! Poor guy. But in the heat of it your emotions are high, sky high! I managed to recover, kept the hammer down as best as I could and then crossed the line. Yes, I thought I was going to throw up. I think it’s always going to feel like that. I got 8th out of 50 riders. I was on top of the world! My first official top 10.

The sprint:

Critical numbers:

Race length: 26 min

Average speed: 25 mph

Average power: 225W

Average power while pedaling: 272W

Number of surges above 4 W/kg: 47

Well that didn't work...

I am trying a new workout today....three sets of 3x2 min Peak/Fade Power Intervals with 2 mins of rest beteween intervals and 6 mins rest between sets.

Well, I'm not sure what happened but I could not complete the exercise. Carmichael says to go all out, as hard as you can and then try and maintain that intensity all the way to the end. Well firstly, doing one of these babies for 2 minutes is extremely hard. Secondly, doing another 8 seems physically impossible for me. I'll try again soon but was wondering about reducing the time to 30 seconds and then adding 15 seconds the next week until I can maintain the full 2 minutes.

Anyone out there have any other suggestions?

Here is the power plot from the first set...(I did not complete the last two...way too dead. Maybe I'm getting sick). I will try some steady state power intervals tonight....or maybe I'll try this again with a shorter duration.

As a post-script to this, I was looking at a Golden Cheetah power profile of the workout vs. my current power profile and noticed that I hit a new personal best for a 1:52 interval. So I guess I am definitely close to my limit which would explain why it was so damn hard!