No. 51: La Primavera Lago Vista 2012 – Race Report

Hey everyone,

Lago Vista didn’t go well. The race took place over the course of two days. On the first day we went clockwise around a 5.5 mile loop, 75% of which consists of a gradual climb and 25% of which consists of a steep descent. On the next day we went in the other direction so we’d have a really steep climb but a long, gradual descent. In short, I dropped quickly on both days, though I stayed in contact for a longer amount of time on the second day. I don’t want to go into too much detail since not too much happened, so let’s just take a look at what little data I gathered to see what went wrong during the race.

Preparation

Every Tuesday and Thursday, I wake up at 5:30 AM to do intervals on the Picnic Loop at Memorial Park. I start out doing 8 intervals of 1 lap each on the first day, then 4 intervals of 2 laps each on the next day. As the days go by, my schedule goes as follows:

8 intervals 1 laps each
4 intervals 2 laps each
3 intervals – 1 interval of 2 laps + 2 intervals of 3 laps each
2 intervals 4 laps each
2 intervals – 1 interval of 3 laps + 1 interval of 5 laps
2 intervals – 1 interval of 2 laps + 1 interval of 6 laps
2 intervals – 1 interval of 1 lap + 1 interval of 7 laps
1 interval of 8 laps

After I complete the cycle, I start over again. On Saturdays, I usually do a 3 hour group ride. I haven’t planned out what to do on Sundays. So far, I started doing 2×20 min. intervals, aiming to reach 2×30 min. Here’s some data from the training session I did the Thursday before the race, along with the splits below:

Here’s an 8x interval training session from the previous month:

Isolating the intervals gives the following comparison:

Which shows that after 1 month, the average power increased about 9% for each lap.

Now, I felt pretty good about that because it shows that I’ve improved over the month. Unfortunately, after putting in an easy effort at Walburg, I underestimated the difficulty of Lago Vista…

Lago Vista – Day 1

As soon as the race started, I felt like I was trying really hard the whole time at the limit. The data above confirms it – the black line marks the point at which I dropped from the main pack. For the brief time I stayed in contact, my heart rate was fluctuating between 166 and 172 bpm, and I took several efforts at 400-600 watts.

Lago Vista – Day 2

On the second day, you see a similar pattern, with my heart rate barely going over 172 bpm before I dropped. Now I think I know why I didn’t do very well during this race with respect to my preparation – I don’t train like I race. Shama racer Ken Day took a look at my interval data (from the first picture) and told me that I took too much rest between my intervals, and advised me that it would be better to not let myself rest completely before starting another. I agree – during a race, after you or someone else attacks, you never really get the chance to fully recuperate. Your heart rate will fall a little but it will still stay at a level where you’re still trying hard. I took a look at Said’s data, and he managed to average 166 bpm for about 2 hours. I can hold 166 bpm for extended periods of time, but during training, I’ll hold it at 166 bpm without going over 170 bpm – ever. However, during the race, I will certainly have points where I have to go over 170 bpm, as demonstrated above, so I need to somehow incorporate those efforts as I haven’t intentionally gone over 170 bpm during a training ride. In terms of wattage – I mainly try to hold it steady at 250 watts but I don’t have any training sessions where I try to hold a higher wattage, say 300-600 watts. In short – I haven’t done any high-intensity (as in not just higher than normal, but really high) or max efforts so I need to do them since that’s what I’ll be doing during a race.

So, for this Thursday, I plan on doing 8×1 minute efforts. I don’t know how many watts I can hold during that time so I’ll just go as hard as I can and use the data from this session as a benchmark against which I can compare future sessions. After that, I plan on reducing the amount of rest between intervals, and maybe during my 30-minute intervals I’ll intentionally go up to 800 w and then back down to 250w to simulate racing situations. Anyway I’ll be joining a group ride tomorrow to give myself a mental break before I start doing intervals again.

Even though I didn’t do well last weekend, I don’t regret going at all. I had a lot of fun and made some new friends, and learned a lot. Special thanks goes to our teammate Jennifer Wagner for setting up the condo at Lake Travis.

Notes:

I’ve finished my European History book last week, and I just finished reading Kingpin yesterday. I’ve since started reading a Sociology textbook, which should keep me occupied for the next two months. After that, I’ll read The Cyclist’s Training Bible and Training and Racing with a Power Meter, which should eliminate a lot of the guesswork in setting up a proper training schedule.