Lost River, West Va.
So the little teeny fast guys at the local bike shop said, come on, do Lost River with us. So I did. It's a seriously hilly and scenic road race that a DC bike club sponsors. I did it a couple of years ago and I knew it was not the terrain for the big man. But what the hey...
The highlights of my day:
1. On the way there I remembered a great, clean gas station with spacious rest rooms, so I pulled in and had a visit, bought some gatorade, etc. Remember, this is a highlight.
2. On the way home I found a funky little cafe with good lagers.
In between I suffered. We all rolled out and when the flag was dropped the road started to roll up. Cool, I can roll up. Then it went up again and I can do that too but just not as fast. So I was dropped from the group and so spent the rest of the race hammering away on my own. The course is a 10 mile square with 2 climbs, one about 1k long and probably 10-12%. the other climb (which I had forgotten about) is about 3k long and pitches to about 15- 16%. While it doesn't suit me, I love the course. It is very scenic, almost heavenly
, and there is a stretch of flattish ground where I made up ground on other off the backers. I would tt this stretch and when I came upon another rider I would let them hop on and I'd pull them back around to the hills, where I would wave bye bye and recover. On the very tricky descents I came upon 2 crashed riders and later 1 crashed with an ambulance on the scene. I thought, I'm kind of happy to descend alone today.
When I got around to the last lap of the 10 mile circuit, the refs at the top of the hill where the race finished offered a "placing" for me without the last lap- go ugly early. I declined and rode around one more time for the work. I figured I paid 36 bucks to race so that's 9 bucks a lap. 9 bucks is 9 bucks.
The cool thing about having a power meter is that you can dissect the info later and find clues as to your performance. My numbers came in low and indicate that my recent weight loss regimen of just don't eat has probably eaten into my power. I didn't feel weak going into the race, but there was definitely a power outage. Below should have been about 20 points higher. During the race I glanced down at the pm a a couple of times and it had blinked out and come back. I don't know if this screwed up the accuracy of the numbers but I kind of hope not. If I really had better power and still rode like that then I'd be bummed.
Peak 60min (261 watts):
Comments
Way to keep going the whole race. Hope to do more bike racing myself. Used to live near Morgantown. Almost heaven.