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.
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