BCMCA Cobble Hill RR - 1st

Last BCMCA race of the season. Went out in good style.

It was seven laps of the Cobble Hill RR course.

Cobble Hill RR

This course is easy enough except for one short sprint climb. Only about 30m of climbing, at about 8% (with steepest bit at the top being about 12%). Just long enough that I could have bust my anaerobic limits (burned too many matches) if I had tried and take it too fast. There is more climbing elsewhere, but mostly rolling and short little hills. All of which was easily handled at a steady pace well under VO2Max.

The finish was after a long and fast downhill, leading into some rough pavement about 400m from the finish, with the final sprint slightly uphill for about 250m.

So I was faced with two problems. First not blowing up trying to push up the one hill. And second was how to do well at the finish. Even if I could get to the finish, there where three or four better short (200 - 300m) sprinters than I am ... and it was at the bottom of a crazy fast descent which they where also faster at getting to the bottom than I was ... so I would have been stuck trying to come from 20-30m back and catching up over 250m, against faster sprinters. Which basically meant 3rd or 4th.

The first half of the course is roughly uphill, culminating in little rolling hill, followed by some sharp corners and bends. In the first few laps I managed to get ahead on the roller and had to soft pedal through the turns to let the group get back on.

On the second last lap I did the same, then as soon as I went around the first turn I went hard to get around the next bend in the road and out of sight. Then worked the next couple of klicks to get to the bottom of the sprint hill. I took that at a reasonable pace and even though the group was only about 50m behind when I crested the top, that was enough that I could get into a big gear, get low in a TT position and get well ahead. By the time they crested I was out of sight with only a little more than a lap to go.

I went into TT mode, averaged just under 300 watts and ended up finishing about three minutes ahead of them. My average pace for the last 15km was 37.7kmh. Our group had been averaging about 35kmh.

The other tactic I used was to always hit the sprint hill at close to the front of the pack. I then climbed up at my pace, allowing myself to drop up to 10m behind the group. This meant that I did the climb in about 1:10 instead of about 50-55 seconds that everyone else was doing. And therefore at a much lower overall wattage than I would have needed. Typically about 430 watts average. To keep up I would have had to do about 460 or higher.

The difference, for me, is night and day. I have a lot more 430 watt matches than 460 watt ones... I can (and did) do seven of them at the lower watts. And had lots of power left to TT to 1st. If I had muscled up it's probable that I would not been able to. (Last Wed I was only able to do three and a half reps of two minutes at 450 and blew up completely. )

Cobble Hill RR:

Duration: 1:47:43
Work: 1638 kJ
TSS: 149.3 (intensity factor 0.912)
Norm Power: 292
VI: 1.15
Distance: 64.131 km
Elevation Gain: 792 m
Elevation Loss: 791 m
Grade: 0.0 % (1 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 794 253 watts
Heart rate: 108 180 159 bpm
Cadence: 39 122 82 rpm
Speed: 12.2 76.8 35.7 kph
Pace 0:47 4:55 1:41 min/km
Altitude: 129 201 170 m
Crank Torque: 0 102.5 30.1 N-m
Temperature: 18 21 18.8 Celsius

Sprint Hill:

Duration: 1:09
Work: 30 kJ
TSS: 4 (intensity factor 1.439)
Norm Power: n/a
VI: n/a
Distance: 429 m
Elevation Gain: 31 m
Elevation Loss: 0 m
Grade: 7.3 % (31 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 697 430 watts
Heart rate: 159 180 172 bpm
Cadence: 56 107 73 rpm
Speed: 17 35.4 22.4 kph
Pace 1:42 3:32 2:41 min/km
Altitude: 161 192 176 m
Crank Torque: 0 100.2 57.9 N-m
Temperature: 19 19 19.0 Celsius

Breakaway:

Duration: 24:11
Work: 432 kJ
TSS: 39.2 (intensity factor 0.986)
Norm Power: 315
VI: 1.06
Distance: 15.18 km
Elevation Gain: 167 m
Elevation Loss: 220 m
Grade: -0.3 % (-53 m)
Min Max Avg
Power: 0 790 297 watts
Heart rate: 152 179 170 bpm
Cadence: 43 119 85 rpm
Speed: 12.2 73.9 37.7 kph
Pace 0:49 4:55 1:36 min/km
Altitude: 131 200 174 m
Crank Torque: 0 96 34.7 N-m
Temperature: 19 20 19.3 Celsius

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