Mt. Hamilton Low-Key Hill Climb

Total time: 1:27:10 for 18.6mi.

The plan was to negative splits, but the 3 climbing sections don't show that:

1. 272W avg, 162bpm avg, 29m 32s, 6mi


2. 271W avg, 168bpm avg, 15m 16s, 3.2mi


3. 272W avg, 166bpm avg, 37m 14s, 6.6mi

I started near the front and had 50+ riders or so go past. The early pace was ballistic and I pretty much ignored everyone and went at my own speed, telling myself I'd catch half of them later. A couple friendly wheels were just up the road (Sean and Liam, Ben was further up, having followed Dave Rossow) when it flattened out 3.6 mi in, and I missed having a wheel to work with then.

I caught Liam just at the first downhill section, 6mi in. He basically pulled me down the hill and up some rollers. I got maybe one pull in. I felt super fresh and picked up the pace in the second section, but saw it was too fast and pulled it back a bit and apparently overcompensated.

Liam also pulled me along on the second downhill. We blew by Sean on part of this, but he joined us a little later, then pulled ahead. Liam lost contact with me shortly after. I felt OK throughout the third section, but certainly not as fresh. My legs weren't rearing to go harder but were willing. I was unsure of how much distance was left and held back until the last couple miles. Averaged 280W over the last 2 mi and 300 over the last 3 minutes.

After having stopped for 20-30 minutes, the ride back down the hill was extremely cold, even though I'd brought lots of layers. It only got comfortable after the first uphill. I should have done a bit of climbing before heading down, to get the core temp up.

As a race, it was a slight disappointment, since I was hoping to at least break 85m. (But again this is the off-season and I didn't really push it that hard.) It was better as a test of Z4 climbing endurance, and a good confidence builder at that, since I felt like I could have kept going at that pace for a good while longer. This event made me wish I already had the new Leopard bike that's going on order next week, since it'll be 5 pounds lighter than my old steel Waterford.

Results link

Data file:

(click for interactive file)

Power Top 10

Here's a graph I like a lot from WKO+, showing the top-10 power numbers for the season:

(click for readable version)

It updates whenever I add a workout, so I get some satisfaction on weeks like this when I see that I've posted a few top-10 numbers. Especially since the peaks aren't necessarily where you'd expect them to be (Tuesday's Polo Fields final lap sprint was the 60s peak, but the 5s and 10s numbers were a later sprint out at Lake Merced).

It's also a reminder to me that real-world riding includes a whole range of hard efforts. Sometimes a very intense 1 minute is decisive (usually at the end of a race), but often a hard 5 minute climb or 20 minute section is what creates the selection. It's rare that real-world efforts happen in exactly 1m, 5m, 20m increments, so I find that even exceptional non-time trial events rarely produce predictable PBs. If the effort doesn't match the length of the benchmark, it's not going to look as good as an intentional test effort at a given time.

I haven't done too many hard 60+ minute efforts. The Mt. Hamilton climb today is the obvious exception.

Ride The World Cup #3

Won the last points sprint

Big turnout at Hellyer today, no doubt helped by the worthwhile occasion (Shelley Olds fundraiser), beer/BBQ and Frankie Andreu's special guest appearance. Strong field in As and Bs (15 B riders).

Teammates: Liam and Jake in Bs. Nole in As. Ashley and Cathy in Cs. Ashley won the Cs scratch.

First Bs race was 40 lap points race with sprints every 5. When the first attack came on the second lap, the guy in front of me unclipped while standing and flipped over his bars. I dodged up track. He was unhurt and the race was restarted. I got 2nd in sprints #s 1, 4, and 7. 4th in sprint 2. 1st in the final sprint, for 4th overall. Race decider was an unmarked guy rolling off the front after sprint 2 and soloing for 20+ laps, catching the pack, which worked sporadically but basically gave it to him. Liam put in some good attacks to string things out with a lap or 2 to go. Nice to see him in Bs now.

1st: Judd Kincaid 2nd: Ray Gildea 3rd: John Cheetham 4th: me. Jake was around 6th.Photo of results here.

Lost the scratch race by a few inches

Second race was motorpaced scratch for 40 laps. Motor started pretty slow (22mph was what was called) and attack came around 4 laps in. I was first to follow and we had a break of 4 strong guys that grew to 6 (including Jake), working pretty evenly with 1/2 lap pulls. With 10 to go, Jon Arcellana attacked and I closed. We were 3 (Jon, me, and Ray), still working well. The motor had sped up over the course of the race, and we caught Liam (teammate) dropped from the pack and he led out from 2 to go. Jon led out the last lap, with me on his wheel. I moved to come around in turn 3 (150m) and was coming up well, but didn't quite pass.

Got 2nd, losing by around a foot. Initially was too close to call. Hoping Garrett or one of the other photographers got a shot of the finish.

Prelim Omnium result: 2nd, behind Ray Guildea (2nd and 3rd). At least that's my guess.


Tactically, I played both races pretty well except for my part in looking around as Judd easily rolled away in the first race. I followed wheels well and several times was headed into the sprint 2nd wheel, with a strong leadout. Given the tactical advantage, I should have had the 2nd race. I just didn't quite spin the pedals fast enough.

Break working together

All in all, I felt good on the bike, with no noticeable fade at the end of the second race (fewer surges meant I actually felt better than in the first). It was the first time trying out my new position on the track bike. When I got fitted by Dario at Whole Athlete the other week, he dropped the saddle a bit on both my road and track bike (I'd been really high), changed up my cleats, and dropped the track bike's bars a couple spacers. It felt both more aero and more comfortable/powerful. Win-win.

More photos on Flickr here.

2008 Season Snapshot

Here's my WKO Performance Management Chart for my 08, starting from when I got the power meter in late April.

Click for a larger, readable version.



This chart is based on the WKO application's "training stress score" (TSS), which is assigned based on actual power-based work. A score of 100 equals spending one hour at threshold (maximum steady-state pace). My long-distance rides are often 200 TSS (for 4hrs+), while 90-min intense rides (which include warm up/down time) usually come in around 100. Commuting both ways works out to 15 TSS, even with 50 minutes on the bike.

The chart shows three key trends:
- ATL (in red) - short-term workload
- CTL (in blue) - long-term workload (equated to "fitness")
- TSB (in yellow) - difference between short-term and long-term load (equated to "fatigue" or "form")


While true TSS can't be calculated without a power meter, I think I have a feel for the scoring and went ahead and estimated for my early-year training. Here's a view starting Feb 1:




A more standard way to look at this is in time and mileage:




This helps to remind me that my training really only started this February. I was riding "regularly" from mid-2007 on, but the commitment was even wimpier than what I posted for early February 08. I was lucky to do 2-3 hours a week back then, riding most but not all weekend days.