Highland Rim Classic – Day 1

Sometimes it’s more about the adventure than the race (although the race was really good, too). Today was a day like that – from the long drive on beautiful country roads to the climb that I wanted to do on my warm-up taking a bit longer than expected leaving me less than 5 minutes to refill water bottles and shoot over to the line before the start. So, I’ve included some pictures and video from the drive up and the festivities surrounding the race.

About the race – Chris Brown (Litespeed-BMW) took the win solo lapping the field along the way, and I came out on the losing end of a photo finish sprint for 2nd place to a very strong 16 year old – Stephen Bassett (Texas Roadhouse). I missed Chris’s move and spent a few laps chasing just a couple seconds behind him but I couldn’t close the gap and nearly blew up in the process. I eventually sat up and waited for the field. In the end game, there were five of us left to sprint it out. I attacked hard going into the next to last turn and held it until the finish … well, exactly two inches before the finish.

I hit an all-time new record max HR of 199 in the final sprint … here is all the data:

McMinnville Crit power and heartrate data

Lap	Avg Spd		Avg Pow	Avg HR	Time
1	23.3mi/h	 388W	 162bpm	0:01:04
2	24.9mi/h	 221W	 173bpm	0:01:00
3	23.7mi/h	 197W	 168bpm	0:01:03
4	23.3mi/h	 227W	 166bpm	0:01:04
5	25.3mi/h	 315W	 168bpm	0:00:59
6	28.2mi/h	 441W	 185bpm	0:00:53
7	27.1mi/h	 310W	 191bpm	0:00:55
8	26.2mi/h	 324W	 189bpm	0:00:57
9	25.3mi/h	 295W	 188bpm	0:00:59
10	24.5mi/h	 254W	 182bpm	0:01:01
11	24.9mi/h	 269W	 180bpm	0:01:00
12	25.3mi/h	 251W	 179bpm	0:00:59
13	24.5mi/h	 250W	 178bpm	0:01:01
14	26.6mi/h	 251W	 178bpm	0:00:56
15	24.5mi/h	 256W	 178bpm	0:01:01
16	24.9mi/h	 265W	 180bpm	0:01:00
17	25.7mi/h	 258W	 182bpm	0:00:58
18	25.3mi/h	 221W	 181bpm	0:00:59
19	24.9mi/h	 228W	 179bpm	0:01:00
20	24.1mi/h	 212W	 177bpm	0:01:02
21	24.5mi/h	 269W	 176bpm	0:01:01
22	25.7mi/h	 295W	 181bpm	0:00:58
23	24.9mi/h	 301W	 182bpm	0:01:00
24	24.1mi/h	 170W	 183bpm	0:01:02
25	27.6mi/h	 478W	 188bpm	0:00:54
26	27.6mi/h	 362W	 194bpm	0:00:54
27	26.6mi/h	 353W	 195bpm	0:00:56
28	23.0mi/h	 208W	 190bpm	0:01:05
29	22.6mi/h	 262W	 178bpm	0:01:06
30	23.7mi/h	 188W	 173bpm	0:01:03
31	24.1mi/h	 270W	 171bpm	0:01:02
32	24.1mi/h	 215W	 174bpm	0:01:02
33	23.3mi/h	 262W	 173bpm	0:01:04
34	24.5mi/h	 218W	 175bpm	0:01:01
35	25.3mi/h	 243W	 178bpm	0:00:59
36	23.3mi/h	 227W	 177bpm	0:01:04
37	24.5mi/h	 255W	 177bpm	0:01:01
38	23.7mi/h	 232W	 180bpm	0:01:03
39	24.5mi/h	 268W	 182bpm	0:01:01
40	22.3mi/h	 208W	 180bpm	0:01:07
41	21.9mi/h	 213W	 176bpm	0:01:08
42	24.5mi/h	 320W	 176bpm	0:01:01
43	26.2mi/h	 321W	 188bpm	0:00:57
44	24.9mi/h	 295W	 192bpm	0:01:00
45	24.1mi/h	 273W	 188bpm	0:01:02
46	21.3mi/h	 211W	 182bpm	0:01:10
47	22.6mi/h	 229W	 175bpm	0:01:06
48	24.1mi/h	 262W	 177bpm	0:01:02
49	24.1mi/h	 251W	 181bpm	0:01:02
50	23.3mi/h	 251W	 178bpm	0:01:04
51	24.1mi/h	 227W	 177bpm	0:01:02
52	23.7mi/h	 229W	 179bpm	0:01:03
53	23.0mi/h	 216W	 177bpm	0:01:05
54	24.1mi/h	 293W	 177bpm	0:01:02
55	23.0mi/h	 196W	 183bpm	0:01:05
56	23.0mi/h	 217W	 175bpm	0:01:05
57	25.3mi/h	 341W	 180bpm	0:00:59
58	23.0mi/h	 287W	 188bpm	0:01:05
59	29.3mi/h	 492W	 193bpm	0:00:51

Here’s videos and pics from the drive-up.

Band playing as part of the festival:

Driving past the huntsville space and rocket center:

Fog coming off the Warrior River just north of Birmingham

Rockets at the rocket center – one is standing, the other is inside the building separated into its stages

Auction near the Tennessee border

Auction near the Tennessee border

Cheap gas!

Band playing while riders warm-up

Athens Twilight 2012 vs Sunny King 2012 power and heartrate data

Well, the results are in, and below is this year’s side-by-side comparison of two very popular pro criteriums (Sunny King and Athens Terrapin Twilight). I still don’t know how to decide which race is harder … so y’all look at the data and make some comments about how you interpret it. Thanks! This year’s races were held on back-to-back weekends with Sunny King held in Anniston, Alabama on Saturday, April 21st at 7:30PM and Athens Twilight held in Athens, Georgia on Saturday, April 28th at 9:00PM.

Summary Data

		Sunny King	Athens Twilight
Time		1:30:14		1:41:19
Distance	41.6 mi.	47.6 mi.
Avg Speed	27.7 mph	28.2 mph
Max Speed	36 mph		36 mph
Avg HR		176		174
Max HR		187		189
Avg Power	269		245
Max Power	1013		1088
Placing		26th		20th

Heartrate Zones

		Sunny King	Athens Twilight
Zone 5 (175+)	0:58:45		0:54:04
Zone 4 (155+)	0:31:15		0:46:50

Some notes about the data … first, it was really windy for this year’s Sunny King criterium, which partially explains the higher power / lower average speed. But a bigger factor in the Watts vs Speed differences between the races is that in Athens you have a long stretch of the course where you rest … from the downhill going into Turn 3 all the way through Turn 4. The only place to rest on the Sunny King course is about 3 or 4 seconds as you brake hard into Turn #3.

Here are the power maps … note that for the Sunny King race there is a lot more time to warm up on the course so a lot of the purple lines are from my warm-up laps.

2012 Sunny King Criterium – Pro men power map (click to enlarge)

2012 Athens Terrapin Twilight Criterium – Pro men power map (click to enlarge)

Here is a side-by-side on the lap data for the two races showing avg power, max power, and avg heartrate. Sunny King is on a slightly longer course so there is only 60 laps as compared to 80 laps for the Athens Twilight race.

	Avg power	Max power	Avg heartrate	
Lap	Sunny	Athens	Sunny	Athens	Sunny	Athens
1	367	330	897	820	159	168
2	317	267	948	827	173	172
3	279	270	839	975	173	173
4	236	305	767	851	172	177
5	282	257	970	895	174	178
6	316	256	900	845	177	176
7	272	234	855	890	179	173
8	303	243	1013	919	180	173
9	238	258	934	891	179	174
10	268	231	822	860	175	176
11	253	272	917	873	176	178
12	260	271	804	918	176	179
13	271	284	820	931	177	179
14	282	250	928	821	180	182
15	265	249	814	973	177	179
16	289	280	853	917	177	180
17	246	234	780	901	179	179
18	276	268	879	876	175	179
19	256	261	874	884	174	179
20	326	236	935	934	180	179
21	260	249	884	903	180	179
22	252	262	945	864	176	178
23	251	234	717	897	175	177
24	256	262	807	896	177	179
25	246	244	852	920	177	178
26	289	256	916	976	178	178
27	291	238	872	903	179	177
28	295	226	827	790	179	175
29	250	216	870	794	178	175
30	272	235	882	706	174	175
31	274	239	898	885	175	176
32	249	253	910	875	176	177
33	250	260	679	900	176	178
34	252	247	735	933	172	177
35	233	218	821	885	170	176
36	265	257	897	883	175	172
37	240	232	869	842	169	178
38	247	232	855	881	171	172
39	274	222	896	832	174	173
40	260	241	657	856	175	172
41	258	262	789	930	171	176
42	261	228	893	820	175	176
43	276	224	900	800	176	171
44	259	215	812	862	174	169
45	242	267	900	775	174	172
46	251	244	825	755	174	174
47	242	229	793	817	175	169
48	247	214	744	851	171	169
49	266	191	720	813	176	171
50	276	246	880	821	176	166
51	238	225	744	775	178	170
52	294	251	873	868	179	171
53	269	240	819	844	178	170
54	253	259	825	802	178	172
55	246	214	788	816	174	171
56	277	280	791	842	177	171
57	278	325	886	971	179	181
58	264	202	965	783	177	174
59	322	243	867	701	181	169
60	330	212	744	743	185	170
61		224		852		167
62		232		816		169
63		244		832		173
64		245		885		173
65		261		731		172
66		232		827		172
67		238		876		173
68		244		846		173
69		239		854		174
70		212		817		173
71		236		879		172
72		253		875		174
73		243		812		176
74		261		782		174
75		280		865		175
76		254		919		178
77		226		827		176
78		284		850		176
79		276		922		180
80		363		1088		184

Strava Climbing Challenge Wrap-up

March 15th – April 30th – 96 rides, 3084 miles and 468,661 feet of climbing – the Strava Specialized Climbing Challenge is done.

Last year I climbed a lot because I really like climbing (and descending). This year in this climbing competition, I was driven by a desire to win so I climbed more and rode much more than I have ever ridden before. Jeremy Philippe still has a chance to win if he has any more rides that he hasn’t uploaded yet, and if he does win then he deserves it because all of his climbing was on real mountain climbs in the French Alpes. Earlier in the competition, it was a race to see who could get to the prescribed climbing total 105,312feet first, and Robin Squire in England came out on top there reaching the total in an amazing 9 days. My climbing has been on the short, steep (sometimes super steep) climbs in the southern suburbs of Birmingham. Almost all of my climbing has been on three different ridge lines with hundreds of different roads criss-crossing through neighborhoods on the sides of the hills – see maps below showing only the 96 rides that counted towards the climbing challenge.

Birmingham climbing – routes overlaid on top of each other – darker blue means more times ridden – click to enlarge

Birmingham zoomed out with double oak way ridge line (click to enlarge)

Climbing challenge – rides in three states

The nice side effect of all this riding and climbing is that my racing has gotten even better as well. I assumed that there would be a trade-off as I bumped up the volume, my high end intensity would tank. But this didn’t happen – instead, I tied an all-time max heartrate at the end of a 422 mile week racing the Mississippi Gran Prix. Then the next week, I finished 26th in a really tough Sunny King criterium with some of the best criterium pros in the country near the end of a 475 mile week. Then towards the end of 510 mile week on the 75th mile of the day I finished in the top 20 (20th) of the Athens Terrapin Twilight criterium. I think there really is something to a term that a friend of mine coined – terrain based training (thanks Warren!) The secret is one word – recovery. Terrain forces you to go easy. If your legs are shredded from racing, then when you climb a hill you have to go so slow that it gives your legs a chance to recover. Whereas if you are on flatter terrain with smaller hills, then you might be tempted to punch it up a hill or maintain a fast speed if it is flat. If you are climbing a 15% grade, then it is easy to go 3-5mph and weave up the entire climb, and there is no mental pressure to go even the slightest bit faster. Plus you have a downhill coming up soon where you can coast, soft pedal, or tuck-and-fly instead of having to keep on pedaling on a long mountain descent or on flat roads. I’m going to write up some more about my training strategies in another post.

For now, here are some highlights/timeline from the final day of the challenge:

• 7:30AM – walk the kids to school
• 8:15AM – first ride – commute to samford with mind-numbing 25 repeats of skyland dr – 40+mph to 5mph each repeat
• 9:20AM – teach languages and theory course at samford
• 10:30AM – help student with senior project
• 11:30AM – second ride – run into Mark Fisher (almost literally) while doing more repeats on skyland – ride together doing some of my favorite climbs/descents in vestavia
• 2:50PM – finish second ride and pick up kids from school (literally – see photo below)
• 3:15PM – third ride – combine mountain brook climbing route with hoover – bluff park climbing route – new max speed coming back down from bluff park
• 6:45PM – finish third ride, shower, and go on date with kristine while grandparents babysit the kids – firebirds for dinner, world market, barnes and noble coffee, awesome
• 9:30PM – upload data – see that Jeremy hasn’t uploaded any more rides – start to get paranoid
• 10:45PM – fourth ride – laps in the dark, tired but full of adrenaline, hammer out 30 laps
• 11:50PM – upload last ride and screenshots, for some reason i really wanted to get all my data uploaded before midnight

Kristine got a video of Analise and Josiah running with me up the hill to our house on what I thought was going to be my last ride of the day. See video below:

Riding with Josiah after school at the end of my second ride of the day.

Between my third and fourth rides, Kristine and I had an awesome date night.