35+ Cat 4/5
It had been a while since I raced. I was getting a bit tired through June, and hadn't raced since Greenfield. Through July and the first half of August I don't think I averaged more than 30 miles a week. I decided it was time to get back on this past week, and entered a bunch of races again. One thing that I noticed is that I am getting tired easier, and I cannot keep up a descent threshold power. My 5 second, 1 minute and 5 minute power is fine, but after 10 minutes of a hard effort I blow. Well this was the case at Ninigret this Sunday.
For warm up I did a few sprint intervals, and then some easy pedaling. I felt pretty good. On the warm up laps I stuck to the wheel of the fastest rider and tried to get a feel for where to position myself to get the best wind protection. Whistle blows and we are off. I start from second row and am third through the first corner. I felt like I wasn't working too hard to stay in the front, and I kept my position for three laps. By about this point I could feel the riders in back of me testing the right side line approaching the left hand corner after the back straight. I lost my position and drifted back. Suddenly I found myself alone and fighting the wind by myself.
My heart rate was pegged with a max of 193 and an average of 184. Cadence average of 93. Average speed was 21.4 mph, and average power was 203 watts. Power wise, this is only slightly better than I did at Chris Hinds back in March, although I did post better lap times and had a much better average speed. This is still way below what my average power was back in May. I knew that my first race back on was going to be a little rough, but this was ROUGH!