Lessons from Racing

Yesterday I raced in Fontana for my second Cal State Series race of the year. I ended up coming in 6th out of 10 riders in my class. It was a tough race for me, but I feel like I learned a lot on how to race and more importantly how not to race.

Lesson 1

The biggest lesson I learned was not to chase faster riders. This flies in the face of my pride, but I think it's a wise thing to do.

The first place guy in my class beat my time by 9 minutes. That means he was doing 40 minute laps while I was doing 45 minute laps. Not really a gap that I can close by guts and determination.

So the first lesson is to not chase what you cannot catch.

In the future I need to let the top guys go and burn themselves out and try to stick to the "race your own race" mentality more. The problem on Sunday was that I wanted to stay up with the leaders for as long as possible and I just ended up putting myself in a hole that I couldn't get out of.


Lesson 2

Reverse your experience. All this means is that the first lap should be the easy and comfortable lap and the second lap should be the pain and suffering lap.

I reversed this on Sunday and had a miserable and torture filled first lap and a more accomodating second lap. It really amazes me that my lap times were almost identical and yet the experiences were very different.

Lap one saw me barely able to turn the cranks in spots and lap two found me standing and hammering at the end.

If the time on each lap was the same then what was the difference? Being warmed up? More on this later.


Lesson 3

This goes with the previous two lessons I suppose, but I learned that I want to finish strong. I was passed by at least one person in my class on the second lap. He took fifth place away from me. Why? Because he finished strong and didn't push too hard for the first lap.

It is so tempting to try and spend all your energy in races. It's like being a kid and you're sent into Toys'R'us at night by yourself with 100 dollars. Instead of walking around the entire store and weighing what the best purchase might be, you grab all the toys you see at the front of the store and checkout.

I just can't seem to wait or spin during these races on the first lap. I want to go all out all the time.


Conclusions

Ok so for the next race (Hurkey Creek) I need to pace myself on the first lap. The reality is that I do have a ceiling with my ability. My diet, my training, my bike, how I'm feeling, what I ate yesterday ... all these variables coming together perfectly only make me so fast. I'm not going to exceed a certain threshold of performance.

So I do want to push and ride hard, but I have to learn where the line is for pushing too hard.

Pacing is key.

I also need to be patient. At Bonelli I let a few guys just go ahead of me and didn't worry about them. I thought they would stay in front for the entire race. As it turns out they went out too hard and I swallowed several of them up before the race was over. Patience is so very hard during these races since people disappear for miles at a time. I just need to remember that more than likely if I pace myself at first and finish strong that they will start appearing in front of me gassed and ready to be passed. (Hey, that's a catchy phrase)

The last conclusion is that I need to budget my energy better. I've been turning this over in my mind quite a bit.

Imagine I go at a 90% rate of exertion for the entire race. In other words I'm pushing at 90% capacity at all times. Every climb, every descent, every flat. Eventually I will blow up. I can't sustain this.

Now imagine that I go 90% on the flats and descents, but go down to 70% on the climbs. Or maybe I pick a few climbs to attack and cruise up other climbs. This "peaks and valleys" approach allows for recovery and doesn't let me get buried.

I'm starting to think that the varied approach is better for me.

The last note I'll make is that I'm starting to wonder what the advantage is to pushing higher gears. If I'm riding up a short steep climb in 2-2 and it hurts like crazy and makes my heart rate shoot up, why not climb up in 2-1? What amazes me is that from experience I've noticed that the time difference many times is ZERO.

In other words I can spin up a climb in the same time as I mash up it. I will be just as fast, but the spinning approach saves energy and doesn't hurt as bad and affect me later on.

So much to learn. I'm hoping the 24 hour race at Hurkey Creek helps me refine my two lap racing strategy for later in the season.

P.S. Hopefully I'll have some pics to post from Sunday later this week.