Chasing numbers

8hr Working Week Enduro Yellowmundi

I was looking forward to this race as it was somewhere I hadn't ridden before and it was going to be chance to test out the powertap. The night before (Saturday) I was still flicking through the manual figuring out how to drive the head unit to get the numbers I wanted showing (avg power, avg speed, time) I also thought it would be a good time to test the HR strap out....woops doesn't want to go! So pull the back off the strap to check the battery type and start scratching through the draws to see if we have a spare, no joy so no heart rate for the race.

Race Day

Arrive at the regional park with about an hour to get my shit together (register, toilet, kit-up, bike check, bottles etc). Everything went smooth no hitches with rego (Always a credit to Bright Orange!), then it was time to try and find somewhere to set up. I bought the minimum with me this time, no chair or table so as discourage me from sitting down at any point ;) I worked out how the transition area worked and set-up at the far end (exit). The setup was one of these with 8 bottles (great kit!)


Taxc Universal Bottle Carrier

and a bag of powergels and a couple of powerbars. After talking to Big Jase the day before I decided one of my big problems is I don't eat enough and I really need to start forcing myself to eat more, and more frequently as well. So with this in mind, the strategy was one gel a lap which worked out to be one every 40 minutes. I was also aiming to drink about 1/2 700ml bottle of Nuun a lap for hydration. The temps weren't predicted to be that high so it worked well.

The Course
Fantasic is the word I would use. The club managed to mix the correct amount of short power climbs, tech sections and downhill and fire roads to keep everyone happy. I would rate this course as a 4/5, and probably the best I have ridden for the 8hr series. That includes Sparrow Hill, Stromlo, Lithgow x2, and Darkes Forest (in the wet sucked!).

The Race Itself
Get the go at 8.30am and it's a nice steady start and settle into the race rythem for the forseeable future. I had crunched some numbers before the race trying to workout what sort of power to aim for and came up with between 200-225w. The first couple of laps I was riding above that at about 235w and feeling good, not pushing too hard and just really rolling round the course. The average started coming down slowly, trickling at the rate of 2-4w lap. The great thing about having the powertap now is having something to focus my mind on. Before because of chaotic nature of an 8hr with solo's/ and teams it was just really hard to workout where the hell you were and how you were doing in an overall context, you're just never sure who is who.

All was going well up until about the 5.5hr mark when I could feel blister starting to form on the pads of my hands. I haven't had this problem before with these gloves, and I think the technical nature of the course was causing me to hold the bars a bit tighter and just having to move my hands around more than normal. I stopped peeled the gloves off and had a look...not good! A couple of the blisters had already burst adding to the fun. I decided to keep going with no gloves and see how things went. One problem always leads to another, because of the blisters I had started locking my wrists on the rutted downhills to try and overcome the pain...not good!
After another couple of laps it hhad gotten to the stage where I couldn't brake properly with my weak wrist on the downhills so I decided to call it a day at the 7hr mark. I was really disappointed with having to do this because otherwise the body was fearing fine. I just figure the chance to having an accident had gotten too high to risk another couple of laps, I was also worried about doing more serious damage to my wrists.

The Data

Well in the post race review I managed to average the following,

Average Watts: 169
Normalised Watts: 209
Distance: 103Km
Time: 7.03hrs
Cals: 4050
Average Speed: 15.6kph
VI: 1.28

So what did I learn? It basically confirms that I really need to get better bike handling skills, at the moment this is my biggest limiter not my fitness.

The Week Ahead
A couple of threshold sessions, death march saturday solo, and a XC race on Sunday should be all good!