Crystal Palace 2010, Race 5

Having missed round 3 because I was helping as assistant commissaire and round 4 because I was recovering from Bedford, after Sunday's disappointing race at Hillingdon I was eager to burn up the tarmac at Crystal Palace last night. We got another good field of women out with 15 on the start line, though with the warm weather it seemed every 3rd and 4th cat guy in London was there as well. The average speed turned out to be faster than usual and 25 laps made it the longest so far, at just under an hour.


Such a close finish! This pic was taken a few metres before the line (courtesy of London Cycle Sport.)

We started out easily enough but within a few laps Natalie from Twickenham had come to the front to start pushing the pace. This dropped a handful of riders from the group, and spurred on by Charlie from Cyclefit, Natalie and I put in some attacks to try and get a gap. We never really managed to get away, but did manage to tire some legs, and with about 10 laps to go we were down to seven riders. Attacking more at that point seemed futile as the fracturing of the other races meant we had to endure group after group of men overtaking us (though we overtook a fair few men ourselves).

On the final lap, Natalie -- doing too much work on the front as usual! -- was pushing the pace with my KW teammate Emily on her wheel, followed by Emma P from the Dynamos (the only sprinter left in the group at that point) and me. I tried to time my now-customary bid for freedom on the hill so that Emma was out of position and couldn't jump on my wheel, but I think I was slightly overgeared as I hit the steepest bit of hill and felt like I was stalling. I managed to keep her to the outside on the bend but knew it was a losing cause as she quickly overtook me, leaving me with no option but to get on her wheel and settle for second. Or so I thought. Fifty yards before the line, she was labouring a bit, and I thought "could I? can I? actually win this?"

I stood up, found my legs keen to give it a try, dug in with everything I had and almost magically found myself coming around her left side. I nearly ran out of road but just nicked my wheel in front of hers in time. The few seconds afterward weren't ones of celebration but instead a mix of shock, disbelief and nausea as I tried to recover from what was apparently a massive effort; I hardly ever feel pushed right to the limit of being sick in a race. Power numbers show new peak watts for 45 to 55 seconds, so clearly I was working hard!

So it's the most exciting win yet in my short-lived racing career, but maybe not one I'll be able to repeat often as my typical "jump with a minute to go" must be looking old hat to the others! The good news is that Emily came in a strong third so I think we've got some more KW cards to play in the future. It'll have to wait two weeks though, as next week I'm back to my role as assistant commissaire.

Entire workout (197 watts):
 Duration:   55:30 (55:58)
 Work:       657 kJ
 TSS:        99.5 (intensity factor 1.037)
 Norm Power: 244
 VI:         1.24
 Pw:HR:       7.2%
 Pa:HR:       1.52%
 Distance:   33.053 km
 Elevation Gain:     726 m
 Elevation Loss:    727 m
 Grade:      -0.0 %  (0 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 716 197  watts
 Heart Rate:   118 187 171  bpm
 Cadence:      38 182 99  rpm
 Speed:        0.6 63 35.7  kph
 Altitude:     73 99 87  m
 Crank Torque: 0 89.6 18.6  N-m

Crystal Palace 2010, Race 2

Week 2 at Crystal Palace and the weather was even nicer -- warm, sunny and summer-like -- which meant another good turnout of riders. And this week everyone seemed just a bit more juiced to the push the envelope, or in the men's races at least; there were two nasty crashes by E/1/2 riders overcooking the bottom corner in the within the first 10 minutes, and the 3/4s managed another later on.

My legs were feeling quite sore from the weekend's TT and with some of the previous week's fire missing, I was happy to more or less sit in the ladies' race and see what happened. Not quite the same number of riders as last week, but with 14 starters we still had a pretty good field with 11 of us staying together til the last lap. I was happy to have three and a half Kingston Wheelers teammates on the start line with me, the most I've ever had at once!

Annoyingly, we were once again given the bell lap immediately after being overtaken by a group of 3/4 men, meaning we caught them up with 200m to go and had to ride past them to the finish. With the memory of crash I'd witnessed earlier etched firmly in my mind, I made my usual jump to start the sprint, but the second it became obvious that we were going to run into the back of the 3/4s, I hesitated and both the eventual 1st and 2nd place girls sprinted by me. The two of them were shoulder to shoulder all the way to the line, and thankfully the guys stayed out of their way so they made it across safely. Quite a close finish that I caught myself spectating from my position in 3rd:


Emma just pips Claire at the line, photo courtesy of John Mx of LondonCyleSport

I had mounted a camera behind my seatpost to film the entire race, and though it wasn't perfect (at some point I hit it with my leg and it turned frustratingly sideways), it's been pretty neat to watch the videos and see how things behind me went. Sadly I had neither the legs nor the motivation to launch any big attacks, so a half-hearted one in lap 8 for the sake of the camera was all I could muster. I've split the 14-lap race into four parts, all of which are uploaded to Vimeo below, though be warned they are somewhat boring and scratchy-sounding! And I had to compromise between file size and quality otherwise they'd have been uploading for days. Next time I'll get more creative with the editing and music, and see if I can improve the resolution a bit.

Crystal Palace 2010, Race 1

Last week was our London Women's Cycle Racing league race at Crystal Palace, that short twisty crazy circuit in south London. With the daylight hours not stretching much past 8pm, the race was underway at 7:15 and lasted a mere 30 minutes for the ladies, about 40 for the E/1/2 men's. But that didn't deter people from signing on, there were over 100 people on the circuit by the time the races started!


Photo courtesy of John Mx of LondonCyleSport

I was freezing from standing around waiting to start so I hit it hard in the first lap and managed to string it out pretty good and drop some of the less confident/fit riders. In fact my max minute and 2 mins was in the first lap... oops! A few laps later we were down to probably ~12 riders and I attacked hard up the hill. Not sure if I even got a gap as there were some strong riders in our race and they were definitely chasing everything, but I started to tire some legs at least. Tried it again around lap 7, again, not much of a gap but lots of heavy breathing behind me! I really have to mount a camera on my seatpost so I can see what happens when I jump, at the moment I have no idea if my attacks don't stick because I don't jump away hard enough, give up too soon, or get chased down too eagerly. At least I dropped some more people with it.

So with a few laps to go and the front group down to about 6, I figured it would be a bunch sprint which didn't thrill me as we had some sprinter-types hanging on the back that I thought might steal something at the line. Also problematic was the way the men's races, particularly the 3/4 race, had broken up so badly that there was a constant stream of men overtaking us. For about 2 laps straight there was just one small group after another, leaving us to just ride around and not really do much.

We hit the bell lap and the two Pearson's riders, Elise and Mathilde had tried to cook something up. Mathilde hammered off the front around the hairpin and down the hill and Elise who was 2nd wheel let her have a tiny gap. I was 3rd wheel thinking, I gotta get around Elise! but that wasn't going to happen til the hill, I'm just too little to gain anything on people descending. We came around the bottom corner to go up the hill and I was still 3rd wheel, but then Mathilde started flagging and I saw my only chance. I jumped hard and buried myself going up the hill, just hoping that I had enough of a gap to make the sprinters have to kill themselves to catch and overtake me.

We came around the top corner and lo and behold, a dozen 3/4s all over the road pedalling like morons because they had been dropped (and likely lapped) ages ago, heading to the line. Seriously, if you've effectively stopped racing with a few laps to go, get off the damned track already! They were completely in our way. I had to decide quickly what to do, I ended up picking the right side, which was the long way around the bend but looked to have the most space to get by. I just floored it and hoped for the best, and managed to get the win. It was very close between me, Claire from Rapha and sprinter Emma from LD, I really think I just got lucky not getting tangled up with the guys. Frustrating for the other girls I can imagine, but then again, nobody but me did any attacking during the race, so if they wanted a better result, they should have made something happen I guess. Thankfully John Mx was there doing the judging which must have been a complete mess with us finishing in the middle of a pack of men.

So not a bad win, though with Charlie B and some others absent, it didn't really feel like an awesome one. Wish I could have done something more with my attempts to get a gap, but with such a short race maybe that was always going to be wishful thinking.

Entire workout (206 watts):
 Duration:   29:11 (29:24)
 Work:       360 kJ
 TSS:        59 (intensity factor 1.101)
 Norm Power: 259
 VI:         1.26
 Pw:HR:       2.28%
 Pa:HR:       2.07%
 Distance:   17.163 km
 Elevation Gain:     358 m
 Elevation Loss:    361 m
 Grade:      -0.0 %  (-3 m)
  Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 744 206  watts
 Heart Rate:   129 188 169  bpm
 Cadence:      30 125 96  rpm

Last lap at 1:58 and 291 AP!

Happier endings

This week was much better on the racing front. Three races, three top-3 results, though to be fair all of the races were women-only and two of them had fewer than 10 riders! Such is the state of women's cycle racing, which is a bit sad when you think that I live on the outskirts of the biggest city in the UK. And most of us know lots of women cyclists who ride with our clubs, commute to work, do sportives or triathlons, etc. but for whatever reason can't be talked into giving cycle racing a go. Is it the ugly crashes highlighted on the news in the pro races that scare them away from the sport? Or just the simple competitiveness; the idea that when you race, you are forced by your competitors to push yourself to the limit most times? Not sure, but I do wish more women would get involved in cycle racing. I'd love to do a road race with 50+ women all more or less my ability, the way Jim can do with his fellow cat 3 guys. Instead I do races filled with elites and Olympic hopefuls who trounce me, or races with fewer than a dozen women, only half of which manage to hang on til the end. Anyway, stuff to think about for a later blog post.

Last week we had some really great weather, which always makes me motivated to get outside and be active. Late summer and never knowing if it might be the final spell of sun and warmth until next spring might have something to do with it. In any case, even with Monday as a rest day I managed a 14.5 hour training week, more than 11 of which were spent on my bike either riding to/from races, racing, or riding around watching others race. It was also my last week neglecting my TT bike as I need to get back to it this week and start building up some long rides for Kona. It's been nice for the break, but at the same time I'm looking forward to riding fast into the wind again, ha ha.

Tuesday -- Crystal Palace
Not quite as many as the week before, but still ten of us showed up to race the second-to-last week of the Palace circuits. Series leader Charlie Blackman was there, as was SE Road Race champ Natalie Creswick, so it was looking like a promisingly tough race. I was curious to see if we could catch Charlie once she (inevitably) got away solo, and we managed to do it once -- though by doing so dropped all but four other riders. Or was it more like she sat up to take a rest before riding off again to finish a few hundred metres ahead of us in first place... Still, my bike handling is improving and I worked my butt off both to try and catch Charlie and to hold off Natalie who's been stronger than I have at every race we've ever done. In the end, as I was coming up the hill on the final lap giving it all I had and waiting for the inevitable sprint to come around me which never came, I let up just a moment too soon and was pipped at the line for 2nd by Melanie Sneddon from the Penzance team. Frustrating, but since she had done quite a bit of work to try and get away from us -- and managed to reach and stay with Charlie a short while before being dropped and coming back to us with a couple of laps to go -- I couldn't complain. She definitely deserved to beat me. Leona had another strong ride finishing 5th, and both of us were not surprised to see our power data show a 10-watt jump in effort from the previous week. It was a tough race!


Leona leads early on, with Charlie on her wheel waiting to pounce, photo from London Cycle Sport

Saturday -- Hog Hill
Having run 19km on Thursday evening then ridden 110km on Friday in the alternating sunshine and pouring rain to watch the Surrey League Revolutions 5-day race (with my teammates Steve Saunders and James Beaumont taking part), my legs were feeling a bit heavy. But I'd been meaning to give Hog Hill a try all summer and this was the last chance to do it in a low-key women's race (unlike the rather higher profile London Open Circuit champs in two weeks' time). So Leona and I rode the 20km to London's Liverpool St. station -- a kind of contest all on its own, to keep out from under bus wheels and away from cab doors -- then grabbed a train to Goodmayes, then rode another few km to the circuit. Sure enough, there's a good little hill there, but nothing too crazy. Seven girls were on the start line, two fell off almost immediately, and the other two were dropped with a lap to go when one of the riders thought it was the bell lap and attacked going up the hill. I sat on her wheel easily, thinking "oh, that's smart, attacking before the bell instead of after", only to find out as we crossed the line that she thought it was the finish! Been there, done that... so we took off again for another lap and this time with the help of Leona clearing the right-hand side for me, it was my turn to attack going up the hill. I gunned it pretty hard and knew I was in the lead, but mindful of losing at the line I was afraid to glance around and see who was where behind me. Turned out I needn't have worried! So that was my first victory and felt pretty good to finally get one. Nice to get the £15 too and set a couple of new power records for everything from 10 to 30 seconds.


Yep, pretty sure I have this one sewn up! photo from London Cycle Sport

Sunday -- Goodwood
I only needed 11 points to get my cat 2 license, but none of the British Cycling reps at Hog Hill could tell me what my win got me, so I figured I'd better do the 3/4 women's race at Goodwood anyway, just to be sure. Early morning races are never my thing and this one was no different, though once we arrived at sunny warm Goodwood and had a lap of the course I was feeling a bit more awake. Seventeen riders lined up at the start -- good turnout for a women's race! -- and we set off a minute or so behind the men's cat 4 race at quite a slow pace. No matter, I was happy for the extra warm-up. It was a windy day, and what with the flat gently turning circuit it was going to take legs of steel and courage to match in order to get away from the bunch on this one. I tried a couple of attacks to see what would happen, but only succeeded in tiring out the less experienced riders and thinning out the bunch to nine. A crash in the men's race on the finishing sprint just after they overtook us meant the first part of our last lap was neutralised, but afterwards it was just a waiting game to see who would start to sprint first. I had my eye on who I thought the strongest rider in the race was and stuck to her wheel like glue til the closing few hundred metres when she was led out nicely by some friends in the race. Despite my best plans to wait until the last second (we were sprinting into a headwind) to try and come around her, I just didn't have enough in my legs to do it, not to mention picked a wrong gear and couldn't get on top of it. In the end, she won a good race and I finished over a bike length back. 2nd place at a circuit like that, not bad.


Just couldn't get around her, though it might help if I could sprint better than a Dutch commuter.

Crystal Palace

Watch that pedal strike (and the tongue won't help in a crash!)

In my quest to get enough points for cat 2 and to visit all the race circuits around London in the meantime, I headed to Crystal Palace on Tuesday evening for their weekly race. It's by far the best atmosphere I've seen yet for a cycle race: lots of folks on the grass lounging around and chatting, a course that only takes about two minutes to ride per lap, and sunny weather that's the requirement for the race to run (too slippery and dangerous if it's raining). Apparently the women's race tends to attract pretty low numbers, so it was nice to see a dozen of us on such a beautiful late summer evening lining up at the start.


Early on and we're already chasing escapees

The Palace is more crit-like than any other circuit I've raced, save the Nocturne: a 1.3km course consisting of a 50-metre straightaway after the start, then a sharp 180-degree turn, a quick little twisty downhill, a long 180 degree corner, and a draggy uphill before a flat finish. The course is wide enough to allow overtaking, though with three groups racing (women's, men's cat 3/4, and men's cat E/1/2) it can be a little crowded at times -- as evidenced by the guy who swung wide into me on the corner and hit my front wheel, nearly taking me out! But as I proved at the Smithfield Nocturne, my cornering is pretty awful, and my descending and cornering combined is even worse, so even though I'd ridden a few laps in warm-up, I had no doubt that I wouldn't be going off the front anytime soon, if ever. And in 23 laps at Crystal Palace, I swear the lap counter said 14 before I even felt comfortable in the drops, not braking, and managing to lean my bike into the turns! The good news is that by the end, I sort of had it worked out, though I had to keep shouting to myself "lean! lean!" on every lap and focussing on weighting my right leg as much as I could for those left-hand bends. But for my first time at the Palace, I wasn't disappointed with how I rode.


Following Rachel's line, I'm getting better at the lean

I'd read some other reports of how this race usually goes down -- a strong rider goes from the off and manages to stay away the whole race -- but with Charlie Blackman out of town, it was going to fall to someone else this time. I thought, "if only I can keep her in sight, whoever she is, til my legs come around in the second half, then maybe we have a chance to get some ground back." Little did I know the effect the men's race overtaking us every 7-8 laps would have. Basically I learned from the wrong end the prime rule for racing at the Palace if you're in the women's race: get a bit of a gap, hold it as best you can, let the draft from the overtaking men's races give you a little boost to get even further ahead, then repeat seven laps later. Not sitting on wheels, mind you (that's not allowed), but just using that massive pack of guys to disappear from the sight of the women chasing you. I must admit I tried to do that myself when the guys came around -- use them to get a bit more speed and momentum to make catching our ladies' break easier -- but by then it was too late. If someone's away by the time the guys come around the first time, you can pretty much plan to see her at the finish line unless she either punctures or blows up.


Trying not to lose touch on the downhill



The effort is starting to show for all of us


Is that a grimace?

Still, a race at the Palace turned out to be the best 51-minute workout I could have asked for. Once I settled in (took me a good half-hour as usual -- and I'd ridden an hour to the race as warm-up!) I sat a lot on the front and drove the pace up the hill in particular. One of the two girls who went off the front was brought back; the other was too strong. I didn't trust my legs to try to get away myself, so I just worked hard and brought our group of 11 down to six by the finish. My teammate Leona and I -- both of us never having raced there before -- didn't have any kind of plan, so it came down to a bunch sprint. I knew that there'd be at least one person trying to come around and outsprint me at the finish, and given my awful acceleration and sprint power, I knew I had to use my head instead of my legs. Coming up the final hill, I was caning it quite hard but eased off just before the top, thinking I could jump on the inevitable wheel when it came around, but I mistimed it and she was by me before I knew it. A valiant effort to get on her wheel, but I ran out of road and finished a bike length behind, 3rd place overall.

Leona and I both have rental powermeters on our road bikes so we've been comparing power data lately. We're about the same weight, though she's taller and younger and I've been cycling for longer. Still, thanks to Leona's recent push into training and racing hard, we're remarkably close: FTP, top-end watts, even heart rate. It's interesting to break down the differences in our Crystal Palace race.

Maryka

Entire workout (207 watts):
 Duration:   51:29 (51:33)
 Work:       640 kJ
 TSS:        85 (intensity factor 0.996)
 Norm Power: 234
 VI:         1.13
 Pw:HR:       5.2%
 Pa:HR:       3.09%
 Distance:   30.413 km
 Elevation Gain: 683 m
 Elevation Loss: 682 m
 Grade:      0.0 %  (1 m)
               Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 678 207  watts
 Heart Rate:   123 187 175  bpm
 Cadence:      38 170 101  rpm
 Speed:        0 60.9 35.4  kph
 Pace          0:59 0:00 1:42  min/km
 Altitude:     73 99 87  m
 Crank Torque: 0 89.7 19.3  N-m

Leona

Entire workout (204 watts):
 Duration:   51:32 (52:41)
 Work:       630 kJ
 TSS:        94.9 (intensity factor 1.051)
 Norm Power: 231
 VI:         1.14
 Pw:HR:       5.25%
 Pa:HR:       1.58%
 Distance:   19.018 mi
 Elevation Gain: 1504 ft
 Elevation Loss: 1467 ft
 Grade:      0.0 %  (38 ft)
               Min Max Avg
 Power:        0 624 204  watts
 Heart Rate:   117 188 175  bpm
 Cadence:      31 182 91  rpm
 Speed:        4.6 41.4 22.1  mph
 Pace          1:27 13:03 2:43  min/mi
 Altitude:     219 303 266  ft
 Crank Torque: 0 1303 187  lb-in

-- FTP: judging from this race, I think Leona's FTP is probably higher than the 220 she's got in WKO+. In fact, given that Crystal Palace is the kind of course where you don't get much rest (sprinting out of corners, riding uphill, even blasting downhill to catch up to faster descenders), I'd say that if we'd ridden another 9 minutes to bring the race to one hour, her NP wouldn't have been much lower than 231. My tested FTP on my road bike is 235, and both my perceived exertion in the race and the numbers show that that figure is probably still about right.

-- Work: according to the kJ spent by each of us, I did more "work" per se, even though the overall training stress score (TSS) for me is lower than for Leona. This is because TSS is directly related to FTP -- the higher the FTP, the lower the TSS for the same training session, all other things being equal. The reason I burned more kJ is because I sat on the front of the group more and didn't draft as much behind other riders.

-- zero watts: what you can't see in the data summary above is how much time we both spent freewheeling, or producing fewer than 20 watts. According to Coggan and Allen's book, "most winning road racers do not pedal at least 15 percent of the time". Looking at our cadence distribution charts, I pedalled for 86% of the race at Crystal Palace, but Leona managed to pedal only 80% of the time. Again, this shows how much she was drafting and how much I wasn't -- and in fact, how much smarter she raced because of it! Maybe if I'd pedalled less, drafted and conserved more, especially in the last lap or two, I would have been the one coming around the others to sprint to the win. Or maybe not...

In any case, both Leona and I are signed up for a men's cat 3 race this coming weekend (Jim and a bunch of other Kingston Wheelers will join us), and you can bet that both of us will be doing as little work as possible!