IMCDA RR#2 -- Feeling Ready to Race
530am wake up and on the road ~605am
Nutrition Pre-Ride: bowl of granola with milk; 80 cal of gatorade
Bike Nutrition: I stole a page from Coach P's book and went Perform + GUs only (no water) and it worked out fantastic! Ended up going thru 8.5 bottles of perform (210 cal each) + 5 GUs + 1 Clif Bloks. Total of ~2400 calories or just over 400 cal / hr, as I ended up riding 101 miles in 5h45min. Cal/hr seems high, but I had no stomach issues on the bike or the run. Clearly, things could change in the later stages of the run on race day, but so far, I'm liking the change -- used to do CarboPro + EFS + salt stick mixed bottle, together with perform + water. I peed 4 times on the bike and never felt hungry...
Bike file: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/324874050
7,000+ ft of elevation gain gave me plenty of opptys to "flatten the course" which I did OK -- occasionally spiked the power, but my VI came in at 1.05, which I was pretty happy with -- don't have a lot of context for that, so would love some feedback from the Haus. i should be able to do better on race day, since i had to back off the gas on several downhills due to traffic, wet pavement, etc.
Bike comments: Ride started out in annoying fashion, as one of my rear brake pads was rubbing with every pedal stroke. took me a few stops to figure out what was going on, and i finally had to just "open" the brakes up, which meant the rear brakes weren't very responsive the entire ride. definitely need to get that fixed before race day; set my laps at 5 mile increments and was able to stay pretty close to my target AP of 170W; the outliers (high and low) were generally caused by steep climbs (lap power > AP) or descents (lap power < AP); my avg HR was 98, which seems really low for me; wonder if I'm not pushing hard enough?? In addition to pee stops, stopped 2x to fill up my bottles with perform powder + water
Run file: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/324874017
chose a hilly route, so that I could practice keeping my HR at or below 130 bpm uphill. i'm going to use HR as my governor on race day and try to ignore pace (miles 1-6: <130; miles 6-18: 130-140; mile 18+: empty the tank); felt slight twinge of cramps during some faster downhills which is normal for me, but overall felt much stronger and better paced than RR#1 last weekend. felt some sharp pains from blisters on my heels during the first 2 miles (have been breaking in new running shoes the past 4 weeks), but that pain went away later in the run and only reappeared when I had to change direction / turn. Finished one 80 cal bottle of gatorade during the run -- took one swig at the end of each mile while walking a few steps. Avg'd 8:30 min / mile for the 6 miles</p>
Aftermath: I'm really happy with how the day turned out. I didn't even really feel tired until later in the day. Was a bit worried about my bike fitness until today, but I feel like it's all coming together. We'll find out for sure in 2 weeks -- for now, it's taper time!
Comments
Your VI at 1.05 is a bit on the higher side but the course has a fair bit of climbing as you note.
I noticed that there are quite a few drop outs in your bike file. How are your batteries etc?
@Peter -- re: data breaks, my hrm was acting up especially on the run. Need to get that battery changed. On the bike, I tend to stop/start the clock when approaching stop lights, etc. Feels a bit like cheating, but I find it helps me avoid power surges to get me back to my targets watts. Just had my power tap battery changed, so that should be all set