Good
- Recon. Pre-riding the course proved to be as important as I wrote about in a previous blog. I was mentally prepared for the whole course. No surprises.
- Pre race nutrition. I consumed A LOT of decent power food all week leading to the race, including plenty of pasta, pizza, and a huge hashbrown, french toast, and bacon breakfast Friday morning. I had "my usual" breakfast of oatmeal with brown sugar, Naked Juice, and banana 2 1/2 hours before the race start.
- Race nutrition. I only consumed approximately 1800 calories even though I planned for 5300 but it worked out fine. I gave priority to my Cytomax drink before water, causing me to drink most of the electrolyte drinks I planned which is a huge improvement over previous races. I also ate a few Payday bars, and a shitload of shot blocks.
- Cola shot blocks good. Orange shot blocks good.
- Training. I put in 3300 road miles or so including a dozen race events. Good thing. I felt strong all day. Long rides, short rides, climbing, Death Ride, Tour de Park City, bring it on.
- Finish. All this translated to a strong finish. I did quite a bit of the work in the pack for the last 47 miles and was fine doing it.
- Musettes. Use them in combination with a killer support crew that understands racing. Proved to be a great advantage as it allowed to reduce the time during the chase, allowed to get ahead of the pack enough to pull over and take a leak, and allows for customization of nutrition.
- Last minute shopping. As much as I would prefer buying from local shops it just doesn't make sense to pay $3 for a bag of shot blocks where they can be purchased for $1.40 ish online.
- Chasing the lead pack. This took more effort than I had. Looking at the splits we got within 2 minutes of the lead pack at Ovid, but we never caught them.
- Urinating. Stopping takes too much time. On the bike is ridiculous.
- Use new tires. Turns out "everybody knows" to get brand new tires just for LOTOJA. I didn't know. My tires had a few hundred miles on them and were starting to look square. I wasn't worried until I got help in the worrying department. It really turned out ok; I changed my tires Friday before the race.
- Race as a team. If one of the team leaders has a mechanical problem maybe the majority of the team should help pace the leader back to the lead group. I know, this involves selflessness, team spirit, and team ability.
- Be selfish. I had to do my own training at my own pace, which meant not riding at most people's pace.
- Get whooped. Find ridiculously fast people to try to stick to. Riding above my pace and getting dropped increased my pace.
- Plan your nutrition. Just the effort of calculating food intake and output is quite the eye opener. Makes you believe in carbo loading. Makes you pay attention to your nutrition on the bike. I planned to intake 5,300 calories. I estimated an output of 10,000 calories. I estimate an actual intake of 1,800, and my GPS shows 11,472 calories burned.
Summary
Overall I am quite pleased with this race. I made a decision to stop early in the race at approximately 20 miles to help pace a buddy back to the group which turned out not to happen. I had to take a leak anyways. It was hard work for a long time, and being in race mode - trying to catch the leaders - likely helped my time.
Less than one week has passed and I truly can't remember this race being tougher than a hard century. I raced ULCER and fell over afterwards. I raced the Tour de Park City and fell over afterwards. How many times in the last two years did I finish something and say 'this was the toughest thing I've enver done on a bike'? I didn't say that for LOTOJA. I didn't fall over at the end of LOTOJA. I sprinted to the finish to pass the punk that tried to beat me after I pulled him home for 47 miles. I am sure it is tougher than a century. It is a hell of a long time on a bike. It is a hell of an accomplishment. I believe I peaked perfectly for this race. Sorry if it sounds like ego or bullshit.
No comments:
Post a Comment