#ChicagoFast
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Awesome race Jarrett! Just curious but what was your average power for 4.5 min when you bridged up to Breakaway in crit? Were you holding a certain power target during the bridge or just going as hard as you can to catch breakway? Thanks
Looking at my file, looks like I averaged 440 (NP 477) for around 3:30 in the bridge effort (hard to tell when exactly the bridge ends, so I’m kind of estimating here). This was to average 28.7mph, with a max speed of 36.6 mph.
I don’t really look at power too much during races, especially when bridging in a criterium. My philosophy going to a break is that you’re trying to make it up to the break as soon as possible, so by definition the effort is going to be unsustainable. Plus, it’s going to be highly variable - I did a 1500w spike into a set of corners to get away from the field, coasted for 7 seconds, and then did 630w for :30s to establish the gap and close down as much time on the start/finish straight.
This actually was a longer attempt than I originally wanted - typically I try to do it in a lap or less, because anything longer than that and your chances of actually making it dwindle significantly.
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Stage 5
Little late on this one - after the race was pretty busy packing up, traveling home, and being really, really tired (my whoop recovery score is 8% today…)
Sunset is a hard loop. You pre-ride it once, you think “eh, it is no problem”. On the 9th lap in the race, however, it starts to really hurt. The descent is technical, strings out the whole field, and doesn’t provide much rest. The hardest part of the climb is at the very beginning, and at the very top is a long flat-ish section that makes it incredibly hard to chase back on if you get gapped.
Incidentally, this is what happened to me on lap 8 - was too far back after taking a feed, riders blew up in front of me, I spent the whole climb/flat section chasing back onto the group, and subsequently blew up on the next climb. Rolled it in, slightly disappointed as I felt I should have the fitness to make it over with the main group. I think there were around 35 riders in the field when I got dropped.
Honestly, looking at my power file my numbers aren’t that impressive compared to what I’ve been doing in TR workouts (since this is basically 12x10’ efforts). But there’s a couple of takeaways I think I’ve come up with
- Race specific fitness is real. This being essentially my first race of the year, the surges in the efforts up the climbs really caught up to me. And spending 5’ at 105% of threshold really took everything that was left in my legs.
- Racing on the 5th day in a row is hard.
- Mechanicals, crashes, and breakaways do catch up with you in a stage race. I like to think I’m invincible to fatigue, but it definitely caught up with me Sunday.
Strava: https://www.strava.com/activities/2221323149
The team capped off a great week with one of our riders (Ben) getting in 5th place on this stage, and Steve solidifying his 9th overall. A great way to start the season, and looking forward to the next big one of the year, Joe Martin Stage Race in a couple weeks!
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Epic riding, epic recaps, and tremendous insight into your journey, @jdoldham11! I’ve enjoyed reviewing and oogling over your strava files too - they’re super informative and inspiring.
Thanks for sharing your journey with the rest of us! I think you’ve gained your own personal TR fan club - especially with the mention and discussion in the last podcast!
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