On Saturday I got up at 4.15 in the morning. We (me and my friends and father) were about 40km away from the start at a place called Le Thillot. I ate some muesli, a banana and started with drinking an eletrolyte drink. My friend Richard and I were going to do the 218km of Trois Ballons and the other were doing the Senior (108km). Richard goal was Gold with meant he had to finish within 9.20h.
We (my friend Richard and I) left at 5 o’clock to go to the finish place. For Trois Ballons the finish place is somewehere else than the starting place. After the 40km ride we parked the car and ate some more. With a free T-shirt we had and our cycling kit underneath we rode to the start which was about 7 kms further.
When we came at the start place (around 6 o’ clock) there were only a few riders standing in front of us. I have to clarify on this one. There are basically 300 riders who have a priority starting position. That is, they stand in front of everybody else. They line up in a different box and the rest (me and Richard) in an other. About 5 minutes before the start they opened the fence of our startbox so we could stand behind the first 300. Then they gave the start, but since the road narrowed towards the finish line you are still a few minutes behind the first after going over the starting line (with timer). At about 7.25h we were off to go.
After the start I immediately tried to ride to the front. Which was not that easy. That it it did take me some effort to get among let’s say the first 80 riders. In total it took me about 10 minutes with an AP of 267 and NP of 301 (4.4 w/kg) in which I burned 10 matches. Maybe I should have ridden this part a bit easier with the knowledge I could still get in the front in a more relaxed way (mistake 1).
Then we were at around km 20 at the Faucogny/Cote de la Mer which is a climb of 2.6 and 3.3km in total but very narrow roads I di. I had no clue from there what my exact position was because there are a lot of corners in that climb and you cannot see far ahead. I averaged 257 AP and 299 NP. According to Strave segments of the two 313 and 318 watts (4.7 w/kg). From the picture below you can see that it is a irregular climb with the first minutes far above my FTP (red line is watts, black W’balance, blue HR, gray cadence)
Then we were at around km 20 at the Faucogny/Cote de la Mer which is a climb of 2.6 and 3.3km in total but very narrow roads I di. I had no clue from there what my exact position was because there are a lot of corners in that climb and you cannot see far ahead. I averaged 257 AP and 299 NP. According to Strave segments of the two 313 and 318 watts (4.7 w/kg). From the picture below you can see that it is a irregular climb with the first minutes far above my FTP (red line is watts, black W’balance, blue HR, gray cadence)
After the very steep descent of the Faucogny (with parts 16%) we immediately started the Col du Chevreres (9.3km climb) - the one I explored some days before and found out my gearing was a bit too big for some parts. I found out there that I was still in the first group. This climb has two parts. The first is OK and the second part is steeper with parts of 14-15%. It’s also very narrow again and you cannot look far forward (at least not at the steep part). the first part was done in the first group but then I crawled up the steep part and you could tell the group was torn apart.
There were more people crawling and I made a small mistake here to push it just a bit too much I think (mistake 2). According to the Strave segment I rode the climb overall at 298 watt and the steep part at 310 watt (4.5 w/kg). See the picture below.
In the descent I was in a group of approximately 15 riders which all came together on the ‘flat’ (because it simply is not flat there) part to the Ballon D Alsace. I could see a group riding in front of us and the gap was growing. I decided to ride in the front to close the gap to that group because the others were not inclined to ride (mistake 3). We finally closed the gap just before the start of the Ballon D Alsace. Below you can see the part in which I ‘foolishly’ went in front to do the work.
We started the Ballon D Alsace with a group of in total (estimate) 80 riders. The pace was OK, but 5 km before the top the pace went up just a bit and I had to let go of the first group which was by that time diminished to around 60 riders I think. .Because the pace of the first was just about 10 watts higher they were not riding away far; I could constantly see them eventhough there were more corners towards the end. My stats for Ballon d’Alsace were (278 AP and 283NP (4.2 w/kg). On the top I had ridden 2.22h and I had an AP of 247 and NP of 280. Total IF until that time was 0.875 and VI 1.135.
On top was my dad and I had to get off the bike to get some new bidons and food. Problem with this stop was that I lost the connection with the first group. When I got on the bike again (20 seconds later?) they were all gone, simple as that. The descent was very tricky and I simply don’t have the descent skills nor the descent courage to go very fast. To be honest; I have seen a lot of guys just taking the whole road while there is still traffic coming from the other side of the road. To me it’s a miracle that there aren’t a lot of casualties in this kind of rides.
Anyway. When I got down I was in a group of 6, because in the valley between Ballon D’Alsace and Col de Hundsdruck 5 people made the connection. The Col du Hundsdruck still went quite OK (264 AP, 280 NP (4.1 w/kg), but I could feel that my best legs were gone; Mistake 1,2 and 3 were boiling up. In the descent I lost connection with 2 guys who went down really fast, but they had to stop at a heavy traffic road. End of the day I have been waiting there as well (we were with 6 again) for about 4 minutes! before we were allowed to ride further again.
Next climb was the Grand Ballon; we were 110km and 3.20h on our way. At that time my AP was 237 and NP 270 (4 w/kg). In the first kms one guy was clearly strongest and rode away. After a few kms another group came at us (about 3 guys) and the rest of my group rode away with those guys. Me and another guy stayed together because he told me they would definitaly blow up in the next kms.
My power was sliding down quite dramatically. Whereas the Col du Hundsdruck was quite OK I saw my wattage numbers go down to 230 and I even had to let go of the guy in front of me. Basically the tank was empty and I had difficulty even riding in the smallest gear (38/29). I got taken over by a lot, and I mean a lot of groups and besides the physical breakdown I also had a mental breakdown just thinking of stopping, because the pace I was riding just made no sense. See below the picture of the Grand Ballon climb. At around 3.50h you see the wattage drift down dramatically. IF in total was 0.837 at that time and VI 1.139.
I was also overtaken by Mister C (someone also from the Netherlands and via this blog we came in contact with each other). He relatively had a bad moment at the Grand Ballon, but he was able to recover better than I. He was able to ride in a group that overtook us and ended up 85th overall. You’ll see his info also in some of the graphs below. O yes, the Grand Ballon was done at 225 AP and 233 NP (3.4 w/kg). Horrible numbers…….At the top I had 4.30h of riding at AP of 235 and NP of 263 (3.9 w/kg).
At the top of the Grand Ballon it was quite cold and also the descent was cold. I got overtaken (I only got overtaken rest of the ride ;) by a small group of 3 guys and I tried to follow them in the easy descent of the Grand Ballon. At the bottom I had to let them go again because my father was there with new drinks and some food. As I said I just wanted to stop, but for some reason the way my dad was talking and just very quickly changed my drinks and put food in my shirt pockets and pushed me off I just ‘forgot’ to think about stopping; I was on the bike again before noticing.
Immediately after this stop the Col d’Óderen (AP 243, NP 245 (3.6 w/kg)) began. The first kms went quite OK and I thought I was over my breakdown. Unfortunately it was not the case and the wattage just dropped again. Needless to say there were groups passing by and I just let them go. Below the picture in which you can see the wattage for the first 5 minutes were OK, but after that you see it trending downward quite severely.
Next, another bad part of the ride starts. From the top of the Col d’Oderen untill halfway Camp Jaillet I have seen no one. No group in front of me or behind me. That meant riding for 35km all by myself. In terms of ‘’recovering in the wheels’’ this of course was also not very nice. In between was Col De Croix which I crawled up at 239 AP (240 NP (3.5 w/kg)). Below you can see the 35 km ride alone.
Camp Jaillet. What can I say. Try to ride and not to fall of the bike. After 190km you get a few very steep parts (17%). Not nice. There were some tourist riders walking up that climb and maybe I should have done that because I wasn’t riding very much faster. (211 AP, 230 NP (3.4 w/kg)).
When I was at the top it is still going up and down and just before the last desecent and 15kms I got overtaken by a group in which I stayed until the finish. At the finish it turned out my overall ranking was 157th, age group 30-39 79th and I was kind of surprised, because half of the Trois Ballons just wasn’t nice.
End of the day Richard got his gold medal which is great. The others all got a golden medal for their Senior ride (to be very honest, the time to ride gold in the Senior is way way too easy). And I was left with kind of an empty feeling (physically, but even more mentally). Strange because I did achieve my goal of riding between 7.15h and 7.30h.
Below a small table of my planned AP for the climbs and realised (including cadence).
AP NP cad AP Result Realised AP - Planned AP
faucogny 257, 299, 88. Not planned
col dus chevreres 312, 313, 74. Planned: 296 +16W
ballon d’’alsace 265, 275, 82 Planned: 278 - 13W
hundsdruck 264, 280, 81 Planned: 261 +3W
grand ballon 225, 233, 77 Planned: 270 -50W
col d’oderen 243, 245, 78 Planned: 262 -20W
col de croix 239, 240, 80 Planned: 317 -78W
camp jaillet 211, 230, 70 Planned: 297 -86W
Quite a lesson in humility if you ask me ;)
You will find my total riding stats in the Appendix Trois Ballons below.
In ate and drank:
* 6 bidons (Born carbo pepto pro / go2 ac+)
* 3 bananas
* 3 energy drinks (High Energy Drink Maxim 160ml)
* 2 cookies (Snelle Jelle)
* 3 magnesium sticks cranberry (Wcup)
Learnings
As said above although I reached my goal in terms of total time, I did have a bad feeling afterwards. When looking back on this experience I can write down a lot of things to improve:
Things to improve in training
* Focus, focus on high IF for longer rides. The longer rides I did last weeks before the Trois Ballons had a too low TSS and IF: They were all around 0.73 IF and total TSS of 270. I had never done a ride with an IF of at least 0.8 for let’s say 4 hours (the moment I cracked). If I look at my ride file I reach that TSS of 270 at exactly the point at which I simply break and have to go to an other wattgage level. That is at the 270 point I had done with an IF of 0.84(!) (NP 270 and AP 235) and I have never trained for that!
As you can read in ‘Appendix Trois Ballons’ you will see that I also didn’t do enough long (tempo) rides
* No slack in training (in the Ardennes or other hill environment). This kind of double in a sense that since I do not have the world of hours to train I have to make everything out of every training hour. Meaning trying to ride / train with riders with same goals: Socially not nice, but that is a consequence
* Planning: Try to start from the TSS number needed and then calculate back for better build up to that goal (see also Friel’s book for a good example)
* Try to work on higher cadence. In effect this places less stress on the muscles which might keep them better for longer and may keep cramps away longer
* Last but not least, but this one is simpy essential as well as ‘base’ for the above: improve FTP
Things to improve in the race
* Make sure you're in the first 150 starters (so I won't expend too much energy getting in front)
* Be really carefull in the beginning w.r.t surges. It's OK to let x places go in the first climbs.
Usually groups will melt together again and end of the day you will end up in a group of similar strength riders
* Do not ride in front of the groups too soon (let other's do the work while you do the coasting)
* Don’t get off the bike; try to find people who will give drinks / food while riding (I saw a few teams which had more than 1 person on some climbs who gave bottles and the other gave food)
Things to improve: Gearing
* Just pick your right gears. Don’t think the gearing is OK if you’ve done 2 climbs, because the ride is longer than just two climbs
Appendix Trois Ballons
Above I have written about Mr C who ended up being 85th. Fact is that me and Mr C don’t differ that much in some stats:
Mr C Me
age 23 36
FTP 310-315 320-325
weight 70 68
FTP w/kg 4.5 4.7
CTL 83.3 72.1
ATL 58.7 76.1
# kms* 6450 4907
# rides 3 hours* 11 8
# rides 4 hours* 5 4
# rides 5 hours* 7 1
# rides 6 hours* 4 2
# rides 7 hours* 2
# hours* 249 161
hours per week* 10 6.7
*since jan 2014
So you would say I have just slighly better numbers physically, but he has better numbers in terms of training load which is largely expressed in training hours. Also the number of longer endurance type rides he did was quite some more as me (OK I should have asked for TSS and IFs of his rides instead of hours. but hey).
That morning he had a priority starting position (so within the first 300). He started 1 minute before me and at the top of the Col du Chevreres top I was about 2 minutes before him (which makes 3 minutes). From this you can also deduct I started rather quickly. His race stats and mine you see below:
Mr C Me
Total time 7.02 7.15
AP 199 213
NP 243 248
AR 33% 28%
Endurance 17% 24%
Tempo 24% 23%
Treshold 15% 13%
VO2max 6% 7%
Anaerobic 4% 4%
Neuromuscular 2% 1%
Aerobic Decoupling 12.2% 12.4%
VI 1.22 1.16
IF 0.785 0.775
I have put more power into it and I finished behind…..Also see some of the numbers for the climbs (watt/kg) according to the Strava segments
Mr C Me
faucogny 4.4 4.6
col dus chevreres 4.0 4.1
ballon d’’alsace 3.7 4.1
hundsdruck 3.7 3.9
grand ballon 3.4 3.3
col d’oderen 3.5 3.5
col de croix 3.6 3.5
camp jaillet 4.3 3.1
The difference is that I pushed harder in the first climbs, but that after the Hundsdruck he kept himself rather stable and he was even improving towards the end, while I only went down after the beginning of the Grand Ballon (which is also the longest climb of the day). Despite almost similar watt/kg for some climbs he did manage to ride them faster than me. This might be explained by a multitude of factors like: his bike is lighter than mine (?), he is more aero than me (even uphill this might play a part), he was in a group and I rode by myself (aero / wind advantage), my powermeter reading too high (or his too low).
Below you see a graph of the first kms and power of Mr C and mine (black line). It’s clear he was in the priority place and I was trying to ride to the front.
Also you see below from the descent of the Chevreres to 60km I ‘waisted’ more watts than he by riding in front of groups.
The last picture below you see the part from the descent of the Ballon D’Alsace until the start of Camp Jaillet. Until that first arrow (the point at which my wattage significantly drops down on the Grand Ballon), I have also ‘’waisted’’ relatively more power on the ‘’flatter’’ parts. You also see that even on the Grand Ballon to Markstein where he was in a group he really got benefit from that. There was quite some wind over there and I had to ride by myself pushing more watts but going slower! (due to the wind and NO group).
From arrow 2 onwards you can see the part from the descent of Col d Oderen to finally the start of Camp Jaillet. It’s clear that I was by myself that part and he was in a group
Now you understand the main difference between our wattages numbers (see also his AR % of 33 and mine of 28%!)
From the above I conclude that:
1) Despite some better physical numbers in favour of me, he did prepare better in terms of the type of rides (in terms of hours). I had more focus on shorter rides on higher intensity, but I simply did not stress enough duration. His aerobic engine worked better than mine
2) He paced himself extremely well and made very good use of the groups! His AR was 33% which is 5% more than mine (note, the info w.r.t the groups I got from himself). So credits to you Mr C! ;)
No comments:
Post a Comment