First flat tire in a long time
Summary
Teams Road race.
90km, 2hours 34mins. 1,280m elevation
final 6km was a climb of 150m elevation ranging 2 to 12%.
mostly strong head and cross winds during the race. over a 2 lap course darting in and over valleys
I was feeling good, ‘not great’ but good, riding in a strong 30 man brake away playing it smart.
52km in I get a rear flat tire. we had the wheel wagon with our brake away group. Slow 60 second wheel change by the time I got my spear wheel.(I was grateful to have a spear)
Chase then started. pumping into a head wind with gust coming and going with every different turn in the road and bush/shelter I went past . I was motivated, the case group wasn’t in sight behind me, I could see the brake away group ahead of me, they were soft pedaling ,no-one was wanting to drive into the wind.
I spent the Next 15 minutes over the bars, driving hard to catch. I managed to get with in 20 seconds of the group. before they started to work again. losing my hard earned ground very quickly. with this sudden loss of incentive, I looked behind me to see the chase group had come into site, moving fast on me.
so on that moment I sat up,eased off the pedals,to get some fast recovery in the legs, for the next 6km climb that was only 100m away, let the chasers catch me on the first pinch of the climb with about 30km to go. there I stayed for the rest of the race.
Us chasing group didn’t managed to claw the brake away back.
finishing 1-3mins down on most the broken up brake away group and 7mins on the winner. damage was all done in the last climb.
Training
I didnt do any focused training for the event.
More using the event as hard training effort for 1/2 iornman I have coming up in 7 weeks
Gear
Tarmac SL7 Pro
50mm roval wheels with26c turbo cottons
aero evade helmet
Sw7 shoes
(spear wheels in the wagon, Roval SL alloy wheel set with 32c tyres, rear was used)
Nutrition & Hydration
5:15am 2 eggs on 3 slices of bread with peanut butter on all slices, 3 scoops tablespoons of beetroot powder in 400ml water.
(little event calendar chocolate)
6:30am-9am,(driving to event) 700ml water mixed with scoop of tailwind and 3 scoops of Rasieys Hydrate X.
9am Ems power cookie
10am (race start 1 Gu gel jet berry)
during race: 2x600mls bottles.
1st bottle with 3scoops of Tailwind/1 scoop of Hydrate X
2nd bottle 1/2 scoop of tailwind 3scoops of Hydrate X
1 extra gel and 5 Scratch labs chews used during race.
12:30pm. finish event. 600ml Bottle of fresh water.
3pm Lunch: chocolate milk and chicken roll
Planning
early road start.
2 hour 15min drive. middle of know were.
Pick up team mate along the way.
weather questionable, pack range of gear.
toilet paper included. (no fun having loos run out of paper when you need to go, always bring my own)
Reflections
Reflections. wish I had brought lunch to have straight after the event.
the day went as well as it could.
Sleep that night was very short and broken, I have a 6month old baby teething.
That did make the drive a little hard with low sleep.
