Perfect isn't perfect: VOS
“For some time I thought of this word only in relation to being without fault or defect. Taught to believe that this understanding of what it means to be perfect was always out of human reach, that we were, of necessity, essentially human because we were not perfect but were always bound by the mystery of the body, by our limitations, this call to know a perfect love disturbed me. It seemed a worthy calling, but impossible. That is, until I looked for a deeper, more complex understanding of the word “perfect” and found a definition emphasizing the will “to refine.”'
— Bell Hooks “all about love”
How did your first race go? I’ve received this question numerous times over the last two weeks. Each time it’s posed I find myself at a rare loss of words, unable to answer the question succinctly. It certainly didn’t go how I planned. There were significant let downs, but also personal victories, and perhaps more importantly I learned a lot. Initially, I felt the need to say it didn’t go well as I was far from the result I had hoped for. But after some time to reflect, I’d like to amend my response to say it was the perfect start to my season, not because I had amazing results and accomplished all my goals, but because I came away with an understanding of my fitness, strengths, weaknesses, and a will to refine. I will be a better athlete because of it, and that's a good place to be in February.
I kicked off my 2018 season a bit early in Phoenix at The Valley of the Sun stage race a few weeks ago. First of all, thank you to the White Mountain Road Club for putting on a consistently well-run and super fun race. VOS is unique, for women in particular. It’s a combination of athletes coming off Tour Down Under and other racing in Australia that are well into their race fitness, and others that are racing their first race of the season (hi, that's me). Plus, it isn’t a UCI race and doesn’t have the strict team rules, so it’s a rare opportunity for aspiring athletes to match up to TIBCO, Rally, and UHC riders.
This year was my second time racing VOS. For anyone that isn’t familiar, the race is three stages: a 14 mile time trial, a 62 mile road race, and 45 minute crit. My race didn’t go exactly how I wanted it to, but I learned some important lessons and brought it all together for a decent finish in the crit. For this race report, I’m going to briefly describe my experience in each stage, including a little pioneer power analysis on the data from the road race.
The Time Trial
I’m not a time trial specialist, but one of my goals this year is to get better at them. I went in to VOS knowing I hadn’t ridden my TT bike except for once outside the week before. I also needed a fit because the aggressive position was irritating my previously injured hips. To avoid further inflammation, my coach asked me not to ride it until cyclologic could fit me (that finally happened last Thursday and it was AMAZING). All this is to say my expectations weren’t high going in, I just wanted to put out a solid time that was faster than my time last year.
The day of the TT I was running on 5 hours of sleep from a flight delay, but feeling optimistic and excited that a friend had offered to loan me a disc. I warmed up, and pulled up to the line as the first racer off. My power goal for the effort was 245 watts. The effort would take me somewhere around 35 minutes so I figured I would start there and assess every 5 minutes whether I could go higher.
The first two miles of my ride started great, but suddenly I noticed my rear wheel pulling side to side with each pedal stroke. Was it flat? I peeked back and didn’t see any bulging in the tire so I carried on. A few miles more and the cassette body on the disc broke completely, leaving me unable to hold a specific gear and with the disc rubbing my brake on each pedal stroke. My fight or flight kicked in. I knew I could either decide that my equipment was broken and give up, or still push as hard as possible and try to salvage my race. I opted for the latter.
My time was, expectedly, slower than the previous year. My normalized power ended up at 251 so I found some satisfaction knowing that my fitness was good even if my equipment was not. Lesson learned? Never borrow equipment right before a race. My friend that loaned me the disc was absolutely mortified that this happened (and to him I say please please please stop feeling bad! I’m still grateful for the gesture!). It was totally out of anyone’s control. The gesture was charming and well-intentioned. That’s what matters. I pretty quickly wrote it off as an important lesson and focused my energy on the road race.
The Road Race
I knew starting the road race that UHC was in the lead (Leah Thomas absolutely crushed the time trialt) with Rally close behind, and Tibco completely outside the top 3. This field was stacked with world tour quality pros and I expected fireworks from the beginning. I marked a few girls that I expected to try to get up the road, but mostly planned to watch for combinations of jerseys in moves and intended to try and bridge when I felt it was right. I wasn’t sure where my fitness was and didn’t want to push it too hard too early.
The road race course is four laps with about a 1 mile climb to the finish. The wind on this course can honestly be more of a factor than the climb. Tibco pulled hard up the first climb and attacks started over the top. A few girls got up the road and I chased a few moves, but nothing stuck. Lap 2 we pushed it hard up the climb and attacks started again over the top for the QOM. This lap is where things went south for me. I made the mistake of looking at my heart rate and seeing 202 as I tried to cling on to the peloton. Seeing my heart rate that high I immediately lost focus and found myself in a chase group off the back. We chased hard for half a lap but had to slow down as the pro men’s field passed us. That was it for us.
I took my performance in the road race really hard. Looking at my power data I couldn’t understand why the race felt so painful. I train at these power levels pretty regularly. I dug a bit deeper into the data from my race using the pioneer cyclo-sphere cloud service. I ride a dual sided pioneer with the matching head-unit. For anyone that isn’t familiar, the pioneer head unit connects via WiFi to an analysis service called cyclo-sphere. From there, workouts can be pushed to Strava and Training Peaks. The analytics on the cyclo-sphere are top notch. Think premium Training Peaks analysis quality without paying $40 a month. Here’s some of my favorite takes from the road race:
This graph is showing my power (red line), pedaling efficiency (pink line), and power balance (green dots) over the first climb in the road race. It started off pretty mellow, but as the grade increased our watts went up above 400 for a bit and hovered around 300 to the top. I notice two things about this graph. First, my pedaling efficiency increases with my power output. On a scatter plot (not shown here but available on the cyclo-sphere) these two metrics are highly correlated. Pedaling efficiency is a propreitary metric that is calculated from Pioneer's extensive force data, and it essentially measures smoothness. Ultimately, I think it's a good thing that I'm more efficient when my watts are higher. My left/right balance also improves as my power increases (green dots are closer to the center line). Note: significant strength imbalances between left and right that change depending on fatigue are one reason to spend for the dual-sided power if you can swing it.
The second climb hit harder from the beginning and was jumpy-- a few spots hit 600 watts towards the bottom. There's less of a notable increase in power and efficiency, but these two metrics remain highly correlated as we saw in the first graph.
The last screen cap is my personal favorite: force vectors showing where I generate power in my pedal stroke on each side. What's even cooler is that I can average these over sections of a race. The left image is the same selection as the first graph, and the right for the second graph.
I took two things from this analysis. First, the effort wasn’t extraordinarily hard, but I felt really crappy. I knew there must be something either physiologically different or mentally off causing poor performance. I checked the app I use to track menstrual cycles and discovered that I was 2 days from my period (its called Flo, ladies you should download for sure). For me, the high levels of progesterone before a period really put me in the gutter. With all the travel and preparation leading up to the race, I completely forgot where I was in my cycle. My guess is that it definitely contributed to how I felt in the race.
I also checked the results of my last lactate threshold test and saw that I essentially have no top end fitness. In other words, I can hold aerobic power for a long time but when the hard attacks start I have a pretty short fuse before I blow. My coach will work this out over the next couple months, but for my training plan this state of high aerobic fitness is where I should be. VOS was an early race, I haven’t quite had the intensity I need yet.
My big learning moment from the road race though was to not look at heart rate or power data during a group start race. A good friend gave me this advice leading into the crit, and it makes so much sense. Power and heart rate offer no information during a race effort— you have to do what you have to do. Afterwards, they are useful for analysis, but during a race they’ll just psyche you out.
The Crit.
I love a good crit, so despite a crap performance in the road race I was still stoked for the last stage. I warmed up and went to the line feeling relatively calm. I just wanted to do something better than I had the day before, maintain good position, and try for a top 10 finish. The race was aggressive but early on I guessed that Tibco wanted the race to come to a sprint (if I had Kendall Ryan on my team I’d want that too lol). Tibco had 9 girls in the race and I expected that they would execute their strategy and control the race. They executed flawlessly closing out with an amazing 1-2 finish. Of course, Kendall in the top spot.
I ended up 11th in the field sprint. I was pretty conservative in the race knowing I had little to no top end, but for the most part I felt good. Most importantly, the fast corners, tight peloton, and strategic thinking reminded me that I LOVE racing my bike. I left the stage race on an absolute high. I can’t wait to rip some more corners on my Emonda in a few weeks at Tour of St. Louis.
Despite the ups and downs (okay maybe more downs) at Valley of the Sun, I left the race in a good place. I was inspired by the amazing women I got to race with. To name a few:
Emily Newsom was the GC rider for Tibco after the time trial, which is damn impressive in its own, but even more so considering this is her first year riding for a pro team. Way to crush it girl.
UHC lead a stellar race. Leah Thomas is an amazing athlete, and it was so cool to see her and the UHC squad strategically position for the win in the road race. Everyone on the team worked really hard and gave an awesome example of cycling as a team sport.
TIBCO crushed the crit. I was super impressed with their execution and learned a lot watching them control the race. Plus, as I mentioned above Kendall Ryan is a bad ass athlete and it’s always an honor to race with her.
My good friend and resident Canadian ray of sunshine, Emily Rodger, got back out racing after a scary crash and she absolutely kicked any of her inhibitions to the curb. She took a prime in the crit on Sunday and spent a good amount of the race on the front. Instead of letting her fear manifest by braking and being timid, she let it fuel her performance and kicked some major ass.
As for me after VOS, it might not have been the race I wanted, but I left with a will to refine, and by some definition, that is all it takes to be perfect.