Westlake #3

Blah. That's how I feel after the third outing in the "A" field at Westlake. The weather was beautiful, sunny and warm. The wind was pretty strong and from the east south east and was blasting across the road at turn number 4. (course map)

I started off at the front of the field. The field was big again, and after last week, I learned it is really difficult to move up. From the first lap, attacks were going off like popcorn. Eventually a big group snapped off the front and most of the teams were represented, so the field slowed to a crawl to allow them to get away.

Eventually, the field formed into three groups. I was in the third group, which contained the bulk of the riders. Like last week, I just tired out after a while. Somebody took a huge pull up Ranney Parkway and I just got weary of chasing. I swung off and let the field go by. I was surprised how far forward I was in the group, and how many people were still left.

I'm really tired after this race. But I was only in it for about a half hour. The average power was only 260W. At Leroy I'm averaging way over 300W for 20 minutes. The frequency of the anaerobic efforts is pretty high. Every lap there's a big effort on turn 2, and then on the start/finish straight.

My challenge for the rest of the season will just be to build up my ability to withstand the high intensity efforts for a long time. In the short term, I'll skip riding on Sunday and Monday and see if it helps to be fresh for Tuesday night. I've been feeling pretty wiped out this week.