Tour de Ephrata 2009 Cat 4/5 Full Report

Thanks to Jim Wilson for this photo above (and the last photo in this posting). Not only does he provide great images at http://images.jameswilson.com/ but he also has a blog with a great write-up of the scene around the weekend, especially the area of the road race: http://blog.jamesrwilson.com/

All the links to each Garmin race file are at the end of this posting. They show the actual course ridden on a google map, elevation, heart rate, speed, and lap data. Now to the post.

Plan much? That is what I should be asking myself right now.

Logistically, this weekend was a disaster. I feel bad for Cezanne because I was pretty darn grumpy on Sunday night unpacking all my race stuff and putting my cycling gear away.

I don’t ever want to get up at 4:30am on a Saturday and 4:40am on a Sunday and put my body through 3 bike races.

I did the Tour de Ephrata Category 4/5 Stage Race this weekend.

This was my first foray into competing in more than one race on a weekend. I was nervous going in about how my legs would feel on the 2nd and 3rd stage, but tried not to think about it too much. My results are in my post below, but I’ll recap: Road Race – 19th, TT – 18th, Crit – 40th. That equates to 28th overall on points.

Last week on Tuesday I had one of the best interval workouts I’ve ever had (on the trainer). It was really hard, but I felt strong. I think I spun the legs easy for 30-45 minutes on Wednesday then set out on Thursday to do an hour and a half medium effort ride. My legs were completely flat. I tooled around somewhere between a recovery ride and a medium effort ride. My legs felt like they had no snap and that feeling wasn’t encouraging for the weekend.

Cezanne left for Philly (visiting old nursing school friends) on Friday afternoon and after I got home from work I headed from DC to Annapolis to my Mom’s to drop of our dog, Bono, have dinner and sleep on the pull-out sofa.

I woke up at 4:30am on Saturday and got out of the house around 5:40-5:50am. My Mom was nice enough to get up with me and help with breakfast. I got to Lititz, PA (seriously, funny name, French I think…), the site of the Road Race, around 7:50am. I proceeded to wait in the line to pick up our race numbers (photo above) from 7:55-8:35am. Man, that was rough. So after I got all my gear on and headed out for a 5-10 minute warm-up and rode the last kilometer of the course. Our 9:02am start time was delayed (probably to allow for the long lines), so we all sat around at the start line for a bit.

We got underway and the pace was relatively easy at first. I was somewhere towards the back, as I usually am (I know, I know, it’s not the place to be). The pace picked up and I could really feel it in my legs. I was already fighting. The first incident was on the steepest and longest climb of the course. You can see it on the elevation tab of the Garmin race file. Somebody dropped their chain and took about 3-5 people with them.

I was able to go around and the mad chase to get back on ensued. I worked with Grayson (can’t remember the last name) from Bike Rack to get back on, but it wasn’t easy. Looking at the heart rate tab I see that I hit 192 bpm on that chase (it’s the biggest blip on the chart). I usually only approach that in a full on, worked-up, sprint. That’s a new high for me.

I eventually latched back on, but honestly, the rest of the race I was teetering on the verge of being dropped. The course was actually really nice in a beautiful area. There were a ton of turns for a road race and a decent amount of rollers. Wound up being just over 700 feet of climbing per 13-mile lap. Nothing too crazy, but not pancake flat. The only criticism I have is that about half of the turns had gravel on them. That’s just not fun, they should have swept them. Other than that and the long lines to pick up numbers, it was a really nice setup, complete with regular restrooms and timely results reporting. I guess it was timely, this is the only race where I’ve ever checked the results at the venue!

Above photo credited to Linc Brookes: http://linc.zenfolio.com/ Like Jim Wilson, a father of some of our Juniors. We're all lucky to have so many quality photographers at these events!

As the race went on, my plan developed into staying with the lead group if I could, then wait for people to fade in the run-in to the finish line and gain just a few spots that way. Things were going as planned until I was caught behind another crash of 3 guys at the 1k to go sign. At that point there was no getting back on the train, so I rolled into the finish in 19th spot. That is a better result than my legs felt.

After that I cooled down, waved to an Amish boy outside his house and briefly chatted with an Amish guy (probably mid 20s) who had his scooter (non-motorized of course) out and was watching the races. As a side note, we actually passed a horse and buggy during the Road Race, it was kind of cool. I saw a few more on the way to Philly that afternoon (photo taken below as I was driving up on one). Above photo is of another race at the start/finish. I chilled for a bit after the RR and ate a couple of hotdogs as I watched the other races.


A note about the centerline rule: The motorcycle official patrolling behind the main group was really getting on people about the centerline rule. I’m not sure if he booted anybody for it, but if someone stayed out there for more than 2-3 seconds, he would call them out and bring them to the back of the pack where they would have to “start over” in their quest to get to the front. I have to say that I don’t disagree with this. I know it’s a pain and there isn’t much room to maneuver and get ahead, but he also doesn’t want someone getting killed by an oncoming car.

I hung out with Cezanne once I got to Philadelphia. We went to 3 different spots (a restaurant and 2 houses) and eventually got to bed around 10:30pm. I woke up wide awake at 3:08am. I fell asleep again at some point…probably just as my 4:40am alarm went off. I forget when Cezanne and I left Philly, but we had a 70-mile drive ahead of us to get to the Time Trial start.




I’m glad we drove separately at that point because I was getting a little nervous/frustrated because my gas light was on for the last 10 miles of the trip and we were getting there after 7am, for a 7:22am start time. Can’t remember when we got there, but I just remember it was after 7 and hectic getting ready. I rolled up to the start house around 7:17am, with just the minute and a half warm-up from the bike over to the start house (photo above, white tent in the distance).




I used my road bike (don’t have a TT bike), but I put on clip-on aero bars and a TT friendly seat. In retrospect, I wouldn’t have used the clip-on aero bars and then wouldn’t need the aero seat. They probably added an extra pound and my knees hit the elbow pads when I was climbing out of the saddle, which I did a lot of in the 2nd half of the TT. My left leg tends to get numb and not produce much power if I’m in a leaned over or aero position for a while (protruding disk in my lower back), so it's sort of a welcome change to get out of that position.

My plan for the TT was to keep my heart rate around 168-170 bpm. No real reason other than I thought that is what I could probably hold for it and that has been about my race average this year. I kept it pretty close to that on the first half (the flat and rolling section) and then the last uphill half I was closer to averaging 175 I think. That last half is tough, especially the last third! The first big hill is really steep (photo above, credit to Linc Brookes). I was in my lowest gear 39-25 and was out of the saddle. After that, you get a quick break and think the pain is over, then road heads uphill again. The next section isn’t as steep (I thought), but it didn’t matter, the first steep section softened you up enough to make it feel like the first section all over again.

Linc Brookes was taking photos on that steep first section. You can see my 30 second man behind me in the pic above. I caught him about mile 4-5 out of 8 I think.

There is a short flat part before the finish line. I forgot to stop my computer until about a minute after I finished, not a big deal. I turned in a time of 28’10” which was good enough for 18th. I’m not sure if I could have done better if I would have had a solid warm-up. My average heart rate wound up being exactly 170 bpm.

Above pic is of my cool down...sweet tan lines. Also, I don't have 2 sets of our team kit yet, so I hand washed the kit on Saturday night in the bathroom sink and at the time of the TT it was sitting in the car drying, so I could wear it in the crit. For the TT I wore last year's jersey (a hand-me down) and Garmin shorts.

Cezanne took the above photo. It's of the area near the TT.

Above photo is one Cezanne took of the TT parking lot.

On to the Crit!!! I was not super excited about the Crit. The lack of sleep and the sluggish legs were all coming to a head. I decided to stick it out and finish the stage race (barring any serious crash or getting yanked).

Guess what? I actually got in a decent warm-up for the Crit! After Cezanne and I had some food, I hopped on the trainer for about 25 minutes. So, I got my worst result in the one race I got to warm-up for! It wasn’t that, I just think it was the cumulative effect of the past 2 stages, my sluggish legs going into the weekend and my extremely poor position at the back of the group during the Crit.

The Crit course was actually pretty nice. It was wide except for turn 2, which was the only turn which was a little bit tricky. There was a nice downhill to an uphill before the turn, then a little more of an uphill crest after the turn. This was the first race of the season where I got dropped from the lead group for lack of fitness. I know my positioning had a lot to do with it, but that’s how I usually ride, so that kind of cancels itself out.

Above photo credited to Jim Wilson. Thank you again! The photo shows the stragglers and dropped riders.

I think about half-way through is when I popped. On the heart rate tab of that file you can see the difference in the first and 2nd half of the crit. We eventually established a group of about 10-15 (I think) dropped riders. I was spent and I did zero work to keep us from getting lapped, so I did absolutely nothing to try to gain any spots when we came to the finish line. Wound up 40th out of 43. Not good.

Over the course of the Tour de Ephrata, there was some attrition, probably a little bit due to crashes and a little bit from people not wanting to continue. Our 4/5 field went from 59 in the Road Race, to 49 in the TT, to 43 in the Crit.

Garmin race files below, complete with maps of the stages. The Road Race and Crit have laps, so you can click the "splits" button in the upper right of the page to see that data. Halfway down on the page are the tabs for the heart rate, elevation and speed data. Most interesting is probably the elevation data for the TT.

Road Race: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/4340573

Time Trial: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/4340564

Crit: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/4340552