dr jones admits Welsh courses too hard for him!

chrisw12

Stolen from tt forum

' My first time on that course and I enjoyed it, although it's not a fast one. You think it should be faster but the little ups and downs on the back road past Raglan knock the edge off your speed, then it's an uphill slog from the turn. And the finish is cruel. With a mile to go I was down to 21mph and wondering whether I had the brakes on! It looks flat but it's not.'

Thought I'd post that here as a follow up to the 12 hour thread and to add

Whilst you were easing your way to a 270 mile victory on easy English roads, I had to slog up and down that dual carriage way 6 times for my pitiful 239 miles.

So come on, man up and ride the Welsh 12 next year?

Great result by the way, any tips for riding a 50?

<yes wrong sub forum so I threw the last question in>

Splottboy

The reason Wales is so hilly?

It's all the land we've picnched form the English, Scots, Irish.. LOL!

Jeff Jones

chrisw12 wrote:

Thought I'd post that here as a follow up to the 12 hour thread and to add

Whilst you were easing your way to a 270 mile victory on easy English roads, I had to slog up and down that dual carriage way 6 times for my pitiful 239 miles.

So come on, man up and ride the Welsh 12 next year?

Great result by the way, any tips for riding a 50?

<yes wrong sub forum so I threw the last question in>

280 :-) And it was heinously windy. Also anyone who finishes a 12 certainly ain't pitiful.

I actually prefer hilly courses but I've a plan to get a decent result in the BBAR this year, hence flat is where it's at. I still need another 'fast' 50 and 100. I might revisit this in future.

Thank you re: the result, and well done yourself on your 2:03(?)! Also well done to my minute man, Mark Alexander for his 2:13 (he posts on here occasionally).

One thing I don't recommend is changing your position two days before and not getting used to it. My hamstrings are not cooperating at the moment. They will learn.

Apart from that, you've got to ride 50s pretty hard, about 95% of 25 mile pace without ever going too much above 25 pace, e.g. on the climbs. 50s are hard because you can't relax during them the same way as you can for a 100. Also you get dangerously close to emptying your glycogen tank, unlike a 25, which isn't long enough to do that.

chrisw12

Sorry about my typing error the 7 and 8 are next to each other

I was right on the 95% of 1hour power mark, as you said. Trouble is my best np for one hour was 1w greater than my current ftp estimate. Guess I need to change my ftp now, but it also suggests I overcooked the first hour.

Jeff Jones

I tend to pace 50s on a combination of heart rate, feel and power.

Feel can be a bit misleading because you're at sub-threshold pace all the time, which means you can always give a bit more if you have to. It's always comfortably hard until the last 5 miles when it's agony.

Heart rate is useful b/c it's less jumpy than power, and you can set yourself a limit per lap. e.g. 88% of max on the first lap, then a bit more on the second lap.

Power is good because you can set a limit on the climbs so you don't go too much over FTP early on.

Interestingly my second lap was just 1 watt down on my first lap, but it was 25sec slower because the wind seemed to get up up a bit.

I think I know why that last section is referred to as 'the graveyard' now...

chrisw12

So did you ride it at a pretty constant power (obviously given the normal power fluctuations)?

A nasty habit I've developed in training is to start off hard and then let power decay. I know this is bad but I just can't help myself. It stems from setting perhaps un-realistic targets, we all think we've a power pb in us don't we and a fear of leaving time on the course.

I might try some negative split pacing in training from now on and see if I can build some confidence to even pace during a race.


The graveyard, if your lucky during the 12 you get lapped and only do it 5 times, if your unlucky you do it 6. There's a 100 on there next week, so that will be another 3! I will have had 11 goes at that stretch of road and I've only raced 4 times. :twisted:

Jeff Jones

Constant power, yep. Well, more for the ups, less for the downs. But my first few miles were only a few (2) watts up on the overall average. It takes practice but it works.

I rode a negative split in the national 50, mainly because I just couldn't get going early on. That wasn't ideal, time wise.

SteveR_100Milers

Mark's time of 2-13 was unexpectedly slow, but he did have a hangover!

Jeff Jones

Ah yes he did mention that