Frustrating

Race 8 was on the program. A race which I have also done a year ago to try again how it feels to race. I then ended up third. Total race time back then was 58 minutes., AP 247 and NP307. Now I raced a category higher, but last weeks I saw some nice improvements on the anaerobic side, because I did lack some of that for the crits.

 

It was a race with 3 corners and it was hilly. One side up, other side down. This for 40 laps which equalled 51km. Basically there was only one place to make a move: uphill. And so it went.

 

 

To keep it short. When the favourites went for it I was there. Was in a couple of breaks with them but everytime we were caught back, because we were not working together properly.

 

And again. Yes. When they went again (very hard) on the hill side I was just 6 meters behind them. The rest of the bunch was way behind. 6 meters became 7, 7 became 8. I knew that I wouldn't punch it out now they would be gone (3 of them). Damn, didn't make it; I broke. So frustrating!!! It happened after 43 minutes of racing when I was just recovering from previous efforts. W'Bal was trending up again and my HR was also going down. See below the picture. It happened at the arrow.....

 

 

It is frustrating, because I was so close, but for some reason still so far. I have the power to ride with them, but at the same time I was not capable of suffering through 6 more meters - I could almost touch them. Bit of the story for some of my rides this year, so close, but yet too far. Next season I will do more races and this is just not going to happen that often anymore like this year. Sorry, my frustration......W'bal (or FRC) will be a very clear focuspoint for next year. My FTP in a range between 310-320 is OK for crits at amateur level.

 

Below you see some race stats again compared to the other races I did. Very polarized as you can see, but this is quite logical regarding uphill, downhill: quite high VI (highest of all races). In terms of power it is also quite similar to a year ago. If I select the first hour of this race I get AP 254 and NP 303.

 

Race 1: 1.12h, VI 1.05, NP 297, AP 283, IF 0.928, AR 22%, Anaerobic 11%, Neuro 9%
Race 2: 1.03h, VI 1.12, NP 273, AP 243, IF 0.854, AR 51%, Anaerobic 7%,   Neuro 19%
Race 3: 1.27h, VI 1.14, NP 292, AP 255, IF 0.911, AR 44%, Anaerobic 10%, Neuro 17%
Race 4: 1.28h, VI 1.13, NP 296, AP 262, IF 0.926, AR 37%, Anaerobic 11%, Neuro 14%
Race 5: 1.17h, VI 1.13, NP 290, AP 256, IF 0.983, AR 46%, Anaerobic 8%,   Neuro 24%
Race 6: 1.11h, VI 1.12, NP 296, AP 266, IF 1.004, AR 31%, Anaerobic 14%, Neuro 18%
Race 7: 1.09h, VI 1.12, NP 296, AP 263, IF 0.97   ,AR 32%, Anaerobic 12%, Neuro 15%

Race 8: 1.22h, VI 1.23, NP 308, AP 249, IF 0.984 ,AR 46%, Anaerobic 8%, Neuro 20%

 

By the way. One of my next post will be on some W'bal reflections; about the concept and my findings from some training and race files. And how I want to use it for training purposes. I think that in previous posts I wrote somethings about it being negative sometimes.....as someone with the initials RC would say: hmmmm