The eternal quest to lose 5kg…
Today was sort of a last minute race (again). Given the Australian Masters Nationals are next week, I should be resting up. Given I’m unlikely to come anywhere near the podium, I’m more likley to not stick to the plan, and hence, today’s racing.
Felt pretty legless. It was a handicap. I was in the chopping block of three. We caught no one. Scratch caught us with a lap to go.
Given I’ve been riding to work every day this week and my last road race was pretty crap, I was expecting I’d had to hang on for dear life. There was no plan today as it was a last minute descision. I’ve not won a handicap in years and don’t get enthused about them as scratch tends to catch my much within the first 10kms.
My bunch consisted of six or seven riders (I counted seven doing turns early on, but by the end of lap one there were six and I never noticed anyone being dropped). Taking off, three of us got a gap on everyone else so we eased up to allow the others to catch. I was expecting to be one of the slower riders, but not so.
During the first four laps, I did my turns and slotted in when RH and JP got tired. By the end of the fourh lap, we’s pretty much caught everyone and the chasers were no where in site. Our bunch built up to nine and of these, only about four were doing their share. JP, GT and RM were vocal about how we needed to pull turns lest scratch catch up.
Up the hills, I tended to lead the way, allow myself to get caught then have a really easy time of it. Over the first hill, rather than feel stuffed, I was able to power up and keep riding strongly.
I was able to rest up while doing turns and not apply too much in the way of power.
With a lap to go, I confirmed we had nobody left to catch and increased the pace. This shed no one and only meant I did a longer turn at the front that usual. Heading along Sthurs the final time I got a little gap and allowed the bunch to rejoin. Over the first hill, I slotted into the back and eased my way to the front and ride at what I thought was a moderate pace. I dropped the bunch and had a small gap before the last hill. Here, JP launched a bridging attack and I had to ride hard to ensure I got onto him and not dropped.
Heading around the final bend, we had established about a 100m gap on all but one of our bunch. A lone rider was trying to bridge and with about 300m to go it looked like he would. The rider appeared to fade and as JP was speeding up, I sat on him enjoying the wind break. As he sped up for the final sprint, I came around him and won by at least a length.
Today’s win was a combination of a really nice handicap, some strong riders in my group and (at least based on my power readings), a really easy race.
For my troubles, I was was awarded $80 worth of Drouin Cycles gift vouchers. That’s almost a new single. Woo hoo!
Perhaps riding to work using my knobby fitted mtb a few time in recent weeks assisted me today. It definitely worked out my glutes and calves based on muscle soreness.
Thanks to my sponsor – my company, Yeatman.
Stats for the day
Thanks to losing my Polar CS600X head unit earlier in the week and my power meter running out of batteries during Friday’s commute, this is a bit bodgy this week).
Average pwr: 258W
Normalised Power: 279W
Critical power (CP): 243W (78% FTP)
Intensity Factor: 0.90
TSS: 86.7
TRiMP: 123.0