Family Alive

Yesterday was the last of the series of 3 training races Brian was doing. Of course, he was hoping for win #3, but it didn’t quite happen. Here’s his race report and links to some of the interesting HR and other data…

Yes that was definitely the hardest of all the races.
There was lots of attacks early and I tried to go with them or bridge
and everything I did was marked by the field. That’s why I was happy
when Wes bridged up to the break. I knew Wes was climbing strong and
would have a chance with whoever was up there. The orange team had a
rider in the break and yet they were keeping the pace pretty high on the
5th lap. I stayed near the front and marked Miro and Hurley who were
also riding immediately behind the orange team. I could tell that the
race was playing out similar to how last year’s 3rd race did so I knew
that there was still a chance to catch the lead group on the climb.

When we started the climb, there was an immediate attack from several
riders I didn’t recognize. I knew that you had to pace yourself on this
climb as I had learned from blowing up on it last year. So I let them go
and marked Miro who won the race last year. We quickly caught all the
attacking riders in the first switchback except for one rider from
Mellow Mushroom who was putting some time into Miro and I. I was still
feeling good enough to pick up the pace, so I came around Miro and
gradually pulled back the Mellow Mushroom rider. After the next
switchback I had caught everyone in the break except for Will, Stuart,
and Wes — but I could see Stuart and Wes just up the road. I was
closing fast on them, so I attacked as hard as I could thinking I had a
pretty good chance to pass Stuart for second but fell short by about
half a bike length.

Here’s an interesting comparison between the climb last year and this
year:

1st graph — last year’s HR data for the climb showing the "blow-up"

point where my legs gave out and my HR followed.

2nd graph — this year where I was able to increase my HR all the way to

the top

3rd graph — HR for the entire race.

http://www.toonesalive.com/cycling/hrdata/hr-climb2007.gif
http://www.toonesalive.com/cycling/hrdata/hr-climb2008.gif
http://www.toonesalive.com/cycling/hrdata/hr-gsmr3-2008.gif

Just for your entertainment, here’s a funny video clip I took during the race. This was starting the 5th and final lap. We’ve decided I can either cheer or take pictures/shoot video. But I don’t do well at trying to do both! Brian wasn’t in the front, and I struggled to find him in the pack. See if you can hear what his mom says in the background.