Observing the race

This was my Yahoo horoscope today.

Let someone else be the superstar. Step back and allow other people to be the movers and shakers. Learn how to enjoy being in the background -- it's just as interesting and just as educational as being front and center. Give it a try. Do not confuse praise with respect. You can earn a lot more of the latter if you know when to pull back and slow down.

I'd forgotten about an important aspect of racing. I sat back and observed a few races last year (while I was in the race) and discovered that it's a good way to learn what's going on. It forced me to race calmly instead of being nervous about every move and chasing down too many attacks; that's my usual way of not winning races. I also noticed that the winners were not attacking throughout the race. Winners conserve energy as much as possible and burn it when it matters.

I'm not advocating being a wheel sucker. In order to make the most of it -- it's important to be confident and strong enough to move around in the field and see it from different perspectives. It takes just as much work to move up and down a field as it does to race hard. But the goal for the race is different.

On another note, we got 1st place in Team Sprints at the velodrome on Saturday. It was a near perfect start, and we beat a strong second place team by 2.2 seconds.

Battenkill race report

We had near perfect preparation for this race. We drove halfway up the night before and stayed at William's country house in Millbrook. As soon as we arrived at the house we unloaded the bikes and went for an hour long ride with a few hard efforts thrown in for good measure. William cooked up a delicious country dinner with roasted chicken, pasta, vegetables, and three philosopher's ale while Dave and I worked on our bikes.

The race itself was dusty, steep, hot, and hard. During the race I let a full waterbottle slip out of my hand at 22 miles. I kept going -- but maybe should have turned around to get pick it up. I was afraid I wouldn't be able to catch back on to the group if I did. Later, at 45 miles into the race, I was dehydrated with no fluid left.

Analytically reviewing the powertap data it becomes obvious what happened.

The first 47 miles (two+ hours) of the race show heart rate average of 162bpm and watts/kilo 2.75.


But the last 7 miles of the race average heartrate of 139bpm and watts/kilo 1.77. This is hitting a wall. Pathetic!


I was able to trade some electrolyte pills for a few swips of water at around the 50 mile mark, but at this point it was already too late.

The lesson learned is that when things go wrong, figure out a way to fix the mistake before the critical moment.

Maybe I should have started trying to broker a deal for water as soon as I dropped the bottle... before getting thirsty!