Athlete Blogs
February 23rd, 2009Race Report - Greenville Spring Series Day #2 and powerfile analysis
Hey guys - report from day two down in greenville.
it was a good bit colder, 40s and very windy, with gusts over 30mph. Fun stuff.
I raced the M35+ RR first, shorted to 5 laps, about 37miles. I was thinking of doing both races, but decided to stick to just the masters one so I coudl get home 4 hrs sooner.
Anyway - the short of it is we got a break of 6 going early, 1st lap, and put big time into the field - then I attacked with about 25min to go and solo'd to win.
I wanted to point out a few interesting segments from the race to illustrate what it takes to get a break going, work in the break and then successfully go solo.
First picture is the entire race - I thought it was interesting how each lap showed the same speed profile almost exactly - pretty neat looking.
The process of initiating a successful break often involves a series of attacks until the elastic snaps and guys sit up. In the first picture you can see several high power efforts as we got a group together and tried to get organized. Note that the power isn't steady at this point but is punctuated by high power short efforts.
Next we rode steady for a good while - nothing exciting to show there.
The final picture shows my attack and ride to the finish. The attack starts with a high power sprint that transitions steadily into a VO2 effort north of 400w - and continues to slowly decline to a threshold effort. Coogan calls this type of effort a "race winning interval" where you attack and then hold a high power. The idea is that you have to go hard enough to discourage anyone from jumping across the gap. Then after things settle down you can see a very steady power output for the rest of the ride.
The ability to hold steady power for a good while is a great skill to have, and is a huge benefit of doing longer threshold intervals. Plus the mental confidence that you can go hard for 30 minutes or however long is key as well.
I hope this was somewhat interesting and useful.
-pete
