The Plan

This year thanks to being in A grade, the plan was for a hopeful break away, but realistically, I’d be lucky if I could hang on the back and not get dropped

The Races

Stage 1 – Leongatha

A break went as we passed the really steep hill where motorised hill climbs are held.  Here I bridged and pretty much draged everyone else along.  Heading down the descent to Mardan Road, where the first test of the tour would begin, my handling felt a bit sketchy so I was gapped by about 30m.  This meant by the time the Mardan Road Climb began I was already of the back.  Looking at previous times up the climb, today’s time was not my best.  I was 81.9kg at this morning’s weigh in, up from the 80kg I’d been last weekend.  My peak week must have included some competitive eating.

C. Henne was first out the back.  I slowly clawed my way back and we had a group of four towards the end of the climb.  One was dropped heading back to town.  Slowly, over the course of lap two, we built our chase group into nine.  This group would have been more suited to A grade.  Ah well, at least the racing was challenging.

For the last third of the final lap, the chasing was a little half hearted.  By the time we finished, we were 15 mintutes down.  I was in about 24th place.

Power Stats – Stage 1

Average pwr: 273W
Normalised Power: 281W
Critical power (CP): 237W 2.893w/kg (90% FTP)

Intensity Factor: 0.90
TSS: 182.1
TRiMP: 234.1

Stage 2 – Shady Creek

Thankfully, the first climb was rideen at a sane pace.  Along Sthurs Road on lap one, I was almost dropped.  A pb for this section of ride reveals why!

On lap two, and the second climb, I was dropped.  Some pesky “team” cars got in the way so I got the grand tour experience while I was towed back to the bunch half  a lap later.

On the third climb, things really split up and the “B grade bunch” reformed after we caught the Big Jim bunch with 1.5 laps to go.  The last two climbs were hard, hard, hard.

Following this stage, I moved up to 17 place.

Power Stats – Stage 2

Average pwr: 246W
Normalised Power: 266W
Critical power (CP): 231W 2.86w/kg (74% FTP)

Intensity Factor: 0.86
TSS: 169.4
TRiMP: 207.3

Stage 3 – Darnum ITT

The indivdual time trial course had been raced last weekend with fresh legs.  Today, I could not find the motivation to warm up as my legs were cooked from the morning’s race.

I estimated I’d drop a minute on last week.  Due to the legs, I tempered my efforts until Sthurs Road.  P. Whelan who started a minute ahead of me was cooked so I claimed his scalp fairly early.  I was passed by C. Monk 1.5km out and came within 300m of my bunny. A. McCulloch, who I wanted to beat as he’s been faster than me in the ITT on our last few hit outs.

Last week I rode 0:13:09.  Today the time was 0:13:59.  Not too bad and I could not have gone any harder.  This time was 10th fastest overall (the winner completed the course in 0:12:30) and put me up one place to 16th.

Overall ITT results.

Power Stats – ITT

Average pwr: 313W
Normalised Power: 319W
Critical power (CP): 300W 3.71w/kg (97% FTP)

Intensity Factor: 1.03
TSS: 24.4
TRiMP: 29.2

Stage  4 – Heyfield

Not a good day.  I felt like pulling the pin up the “hill” right after the round about.  I was dropped at the KOM and rode like mad to catch up by the turn into Heyfield Seaton Road.  About half was along here, the bunch pace seemed to ease off as did a break about 200m up the road.  I then tried to bridge.  Massive failure.  The road went up.  I went backwards.

As we passed the round about on lap 2, I was struggling to hold my wheel and dropped off the back. Riding solo into a nasty head wind until the left hander at the cemetary was a struggle.  I’d made up my mind that I would pull the pin if I did not spy any stragglers as I headed up the the finish line.  That way they’d not be waiting for me to cross the line before I could get stuck into the time calculations.

Power Stats – Stage 4

Average pwr: 233W
Normalised Power: 254W
Critical power (CP): 229W 2.82w/kg (74% FTP)

Intensity Factor: 0.82
TSS: 102.8
TRiMP: 111.8

Summary

Plenty of PB’s ridden so yay there.

Riding A grade was a challenge and beyond me.  Possibly due to the lack of an annual training program – my B grade win last year was the result of such a program over the last few year and as I achieved the goal, there was no reason for another plan.  It needs to return if I want to do well in A grade, (though being a stupid weight like 75kg would not hurt either).

The ITT was well ridden at least.

Next year I will very likely race only as time keeping takes too much of my time (as this year meant I DNF’ed rather than limp home to post a time).  1am making sure the ITT results are correct when I should be sleeping.  Not again.

Thanks to my sponsor, Drouin Cycles.

Stats For The Weekend

14/06/2015 Note:  A tired week of day on day off commuting with this weekend totally off.   Still trying to get over the weekend and run down as evidence by lots of migraines (there this last week), and plenty of CBF’s when it comes to riding.  At least TSB’s back to 0 so hopefully I’m not overtrained.