I beat the entire BPG team at Pescadero
I know, I know, it's practically cheating as there were only two there
and one of them (the guy from BPG that was in the winning breakaway
move, actually) flatted out.
But I didn't say what qualified, did I? Just that I thought it would be
funny to beat the whole BPG team at a race. This of course conclusively
proves I'm single-handedly better than all of them, of course.
More honestly though, I got my ass handed to me at Pescadero. I blew up
a bit on the main climb each time up the hill but chased back on the
first two times. The third of four times up the small hills I blew off
the back when Paul Mach hit the front to stretch his legs or something
and was unable to chase back on despite a real effort with a couple
other guys.
After that I just rolled it around for the rest of the 103 miles and
finished - not quite last, but really close. Total mileage to the car
for the drive home was 113 miles, and my nifty power meter told me it
was about 3 days worth of training stress in 5 hours. Made for a great
nap when I got back anyway.
What did I learn? I can't climb with the P12 pack yet. I'm a little too
heavy, and not quite strong enough. I'm close...but close isn't quite
good enough. So I need to work on that.
For the power junkies out there the main climb was something around 7:30
each time, which was 310W average for me, and I was 144lbs for the race.
Had I been able to hang with the pack I think it would have been 7:00 to
7:15, and while I was with them I was doing ~380W steady for 2 minutes.
Those are great numbers for me, just not quite good enough.
5lbs (to my racing weight last season, basically) and 5% more power and
I think I'd be there. That's attainable...
Cheers
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