Above is the published profile of the 63 mile race course. Below is my bike computer's interpretation of the profile. Which one do you think I looked at when I decided to race this event? The chart below shows only altitude and heart rate.
All kidding aside, many things about my race were absolutely awful. Fortunately, I also have the luxury of finding the good concealed within the bad and the ugly. This week I increased my training volume way too much, by a factor of 2.35.. and today's lousy performance was not a surprise. The cramping surprised me, and the difficulty of this course surprised me (see above). Let me also add that "Mapmyride" indicates only 3035 vertical feet of climbing. My Polar and my Ergomo beg to differ. Polar recorded 4419 feet of climbing and Ergomo 5066. I hear that District Championships used to do TWO laps of this?? 126 miles?? Good grief that would suck.
Above is the published profile of the 63 mile race course. Below is my bike computer's interpretation of the profile. Which one do you think I looked at when I decided to race this event? The chart below shows only altitude and heart rate. 
All kidding aside, many things about my race were absolutely awful. Fortunately, I also have the luxury of finding the good concealed within the bad and the ugly. This week I increased my training volume way too much, by a factor of 2.35.. and today's lousy performance was not a surprise. The cramping surprised me, and the difficulty of this course surprised me (see above). Let me also add that "Mapmyride" indicates only 3035 vertical feet of climbing. My Polar and my Ergomo beg to differ. Polar recorded 4419 feet of climbing and Ergomo 5066. I hear that District Championships used to do TWO laps of this?? 126 miles?? Good grief that would suck.
4 comments:
We have discussed the mapmyride issue on other blogs. Surprised you missed it. On their FAQ page is says their system ignores rises of less than 60 meters or so continuous. So "little" bumps like that are not included in the totals.
http://www.mapmyride.com/help/#12
Shame on me for not reading the fine print. The hills weren't terribly steep or very long. It was the speed that we went over them which killed me. About an hour into the race I was overtaken by the 35+ field along with a few other masters who thought they could do the Pro race. Funny how we were all blown out the back of the 35s too.. Once you're blown on a course like that, it's over. I was even dropped from our group of six when I started to cramp about 2 hours into it.. Then the 45s went past- and then those of another group went through me.. By the end of my race there were guys wearing tennis shoes duct taped to their pedals and old fabric covered Giro helmets riding steel bikes, going past me.
I ran out of water with one hour left to race. That was bad.
That's irony -- out of water while riding around a gigantic reservoir.
So masters' racing just isn't difficult enough for you huh?
Don't you think?..
Originally they had the 35s starting first, followed by the Pros. This was changed at the last minute- the Pros rolled off first. It doesn't much matter which race I did- our boys wanted to do the Pro race and I wanted to try to do it with them. In hindsight, it ended up giving me more of a head start as I moved in reverse through the next four fields.
It goes without saying- having zero knowledge about a point to point course like this is a huge disadvantage- especially if you suck.
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