LA Circuit Race

It's gettin' late, so this will be a short one...

Did the LA circuit race last weekend as the second day of hard-ish ridin'. Laid down a maximal 20MP effort on Saturday, where I'm still a handful of watts behind where I was at this time last year. Then set out to get some fill/racing in up in LA.

Whoa, super windy day of racing on Sunday. Seems as if we were going 55-60 kph in the tailwind section and 30 kph in the headwind section. I hadn't done this course yet, and it reminded me of the Long Beach Grand Prix from last year. Basically a big 2 mile straightaway, make a u-turn then do another 2 miles before flippin' another u-turn.

I put myself in to a spot of bother a couple times during the 35+ race - drilled it hard in the headwind section just prior to making the turn into the tailwind section. huh, it's hard to get much of a draft with a 40kph tailwind!!!

There was one point where I got into the descending tuck position and managed to go the same speed as trying to spin out the 12... crazy.

The finale was one of the harder ones of the past couple years. the finish was probably 2k from the last 180 turn and it was all tailwind. The main group overhauled a breakaway with maybe 1500m to go, and I was maybe 4th or 5th wheel -> sitting nicely on Joel Stangelands wheel, as a matter of fact. I maintained that position, but got my doors totally blown off in the sprint and wound up thirteenth on the day.

Felt good about the race, as I was really active, covering some moves, bridging others, and even completely detonating at one point - and better yet, I didn't have any major issues with my calves...

The three's race was immediately after the 35+ race, and the legs could definitely feel it. I put in a couple digs during that race, but basically sucked wheel for quite some time. You can see in the screenshot above, that the 3's race was something like 40 watts lower in average power. Crap, drafting really does work! Majorly crappy positioning for the finish, and was nowhere near the action.

This weeks rides:

Sat - 1 hr - couser @ 17:07 and 4.4 W/kg
Sun - 3 hr - LA circuit race
M- off
T-50 mins with 20 min @5.5 W/kg in 3-4 min chunks
W - 60 mins with 10 min @ >6W/kg in 2 min chunks
Th-off
F-20 min with openers

Couple more races this coming weekend: Del Mar Crit on sat, and Ontario#2 on sun.

See you out there!