Note: Partial route
Race name: 2009 New Martinsville Road Race - WVRRS #2
Date and start time: 04/26/2009; 10:00 am
Location: New Martinsville, WV
Type/distance: Mostly rolling hills with a couple steep climbs; 45 miles in total
Competitors to watch: None - first time doing the race and don't know anyone
Weather: 88 degF, little shade on the course
Course condition: Rather smooth considering WV is the less wealthy than PA. Had quite a few corners covered with gravel, though.
Race goal: Finish with the main group
Race strategy: Stay near the front at the beginning of the race, and try stick with the main group on the climb
Pre-race meal:
0530 - 3 Quaker rice cakes with peanut butter; 1 glass of soy milk
0730 - 1 cliff bar
0930 –16oz water with 4 scoops of Cytomax
Mid-race meal :
5 GU gel packs
2*16 oz bottle of water with 4 scoops of GU powder each
Warm-up description:
2 1-min Fast Pedal
1 1-min Power Interval
Endurance ride (150-200 Watt) for the rest of the time
Total 30min
Start-line arousal level(1-5): 5
Results: 4th in Cat 5
Power files start/end point:
What I did well:
1. Hold fairly good position (top one-third of the field) at the beginning
2. Had a good working relationship with 4 other guys – I pulled only a little bit and let the fitter guys do most of the work
3. Finished the race despite getting cramps in both my legs, out of gels and water.
4. Brought my trainer for warm-up
What I need to improve:
1. Endurance – The longest ride I did in the last few month is about 37 miles. I got cramps at about the same distance. There appears to be some relationship.
2. Need to carry more gels – I was out of gels about half-way through the race. I carried two Cliff bars, but I found I cannot eat solid food at all in the heat of the race.
Aches/pains/problems afterwards:
1. Lingering pain in my calf muscles where the cramps occurred
2. Front derailer was bent
Comments on or description of how race developed:
I went to sleep at 9:30 pm the at night before the race, and woke up at 5:30 am on race day. It took me about 45 min to have breakfast and attend to personal hygiene (Actually, I spent most of the time dealing with stomach problem, that’s why I never drink coffee on the race day – it makes matter worse), so if I was going to pick up someone, I would have been late (my friend decided not to come). I need to extend my morning preparation time to 1’30” (+ time to pick up someone) in the future.
I got to the race site at 8:45 am, finished the registration and equipment set-up by 9:10 am, and warmed up on the trainer until 9:40 am. After that, I rode on the road where the race started back and forth and waited for the race to start. The field was smaller than I thought, and I think I was the only guy from Pittsburgh area. The guys from big teams such as Iron City, UPMC and IRMC were all at Tour de Ephrata at Lancaster County, PA. Most people are from Ohio or local area.
Since the field was small, all categories started together. The first 10 miles was on the roads by the Ohio River, so it was a flat and easy ride. And I could hear the group was chatting and laughing, as if it were just a group ride with friends. But about 1 mile before turning onto Sykes Ridge road, the pace picked up. I was about 20th in the position at the bottom of the climb, but I was at more than 300 Watts already, and I couldn’t hold the pace longer than a few minutes, so as the climb kept going up, more and more people were slipping by me. By the time I was at top, most people were gone. At 14-mile mark, a group of four caught up with me, and invited me to join them. The group consists of two riders (one guy is called Tim) are from local bike club – the “Wheelcraft”, a 54-year-old guy, and a big guy from Greene county. We kept doing paceline as applicable, and I tried to limit the length of my pull to be less than 30 seconds, and the intensity to be less than 230 Watts. We lost one rider at about 30-mile mark, which I attribute to the big guy’s pulling too hard at the front and creating gaps quite a few times.
We passed by a water station at about 32-mile mark, but I didn’t get any water because I was behind two guys and they could only give out two cups of water at one time. Around 36-mile mark, we hit a series of steep climbs, and I started having problems. At the top of the first climb, Tim was kind enough to wait a little bit, but my front derailer jammed my chain soon after I joined them, so I had to let them go. After I fixed the problem, I noticed that my leg muscles started to twitch unnaturally and my pedaling was not as smooth as before. Not long after I started rolling again, I got a cramp on my right vastus medialis oblique muscles. It was funny how I got the cramp – I was trying to relax my quads a little bit by straightening and relax my knees, but it did the opposites and caused my VMO to seize up. I probably should try to unclip my right foot and pull my right knee up to stretch, but I feared I might crash from that due to fatigue. After I got the mobility back again, I could hold only about 100 Watts. I got passed by three people during this process, but there’s nothing I could do.
About 4 miles from the end, I got another cramp. This time, it was the left gastronemius muscles. It felt even worse because I had no other leg to help propelling myself forward. Still, I struggled forward with less than 100 Watts and soft-pedaled into the finish line, which was at the bottom of a downhill road section. Not great, but I finished! Looking back at what went wrong, I think I wasn’t ready for a race of this distance. The longest ride I’ve done in the past few months is about 37 miles. Although I was out of Gels and water at the same time, I don’t think they would help.
