Finding and pushing your limit when racing

I don’t think you’ve quite got that right molgrips.

Ignore lactate for now.

There are essentially two kinds of energy production in cells; aerobic, ie fuelled by oxygen, and anaerobic, ie not fuelled by oxygen.

Aerobic energy production is what we do all the time, and is limited eventually by a lack of fuel.
Anaerobic is sprinting and can only be sustained for seconds.

Lactate is more complex;
http://www.cyclingnews.com/features/lactate-and-lactic-acid-dispelling-the-myths

rollindoughnut – Member
That’s a great photo.
It all starts to make sense the more races you do. I do know that whatever my finishing position I’m happy if I’ve almost killed myself with the effort. The couple of times I played safe I felt very flat afterwards

I was supposed to be doing this with Crosshair, but like you i found i felt flat afterwards, however not through lack of trying or lack of effort, but simply by being inferior to a vast percentage of the field.

Even the weekend before i was training with Crosshair at Swinley and he crucified me…. it demoralised me at the time. Probably playing a large part in me bailing on the event and doing FoD instead on Saturday.

Interesting link Crikey, ta. End result for us lot is the same though – going into the red increases fatigue very quickly, so stay under it if you want to last longer.

crosshair, here’s some stuff about the ramp test. It’s a useful tool to find your max HR and set power zones etc., but it doesn’t half sting.
http://wattbike.com/uk/guide/cycling_tests/ramp_tests

Was aimed more at umop’s comment that he expected quicker people had a lower HR. Totally agree with your comment.

I also agree with his comment, I was saying that I haven’t come across many people with a higher HR than mine. 200bpm for 2hrs is nuts!

molgrips – Member
Interesting link Crikey, ta. End result for us lot is the same though – going into the red increases fatigue very quickly, so stay under it if you want to last longer.

That’s the basic rule. I kept my HR lower than the week before for my latter/longer ride, and eased up on the climbs. There was a 35 mile flattish section which I then used on the drops at LTh to eat some time up. More (4 x cat 4) climbs at the end but I then found that although I was hurting I could really turn a gear on the last 2 mile false flat to the finish – took three riders on that stretch.

For me it worked superbly yesterday. And its this kind of experience I allude to in my first post – six months of learning about and riding with that knowledge has got me to the point I can biomechanically pace myself to a point, at which I’m pretty close to done but only on the finish line. Or it could have been luck 😀

Of course, there are other methods that work for other people.

MTBing is a little different, due to the difficulty in passing on many courses.

I was there too and will be at Gorrick next weekend.

Last time at Banjo which was my first short course XC race I thought about HR and I didn’t go deep enough. This time I hid the HR and concentrated on effort. I never had any time to see the monitor except to check total time once when I was hoping I’d done 5 laps but could see I hadn’t.

Previously I was drawing off my experience of bonking/going into the red on long events which is a false lesson. This time I went as hard as I could and harder when trying to catch people. There were some tech bits where I could recover. That and my training meant I improved 75s a lap but still have a big problem on the first lap which I intend to overcompensate for next weekend.

molgrips – Member
MTBing is a little different, due to the difficulty in passing on many courses.

Well yes, but you can choose your battles. There were several sections on the recent Bonty24/12 where you could do so depending on your strengths. For me, it was the exit out of the spooky singletrack onto the double track, and the last grass section out of the campsite into the small rocky “paintballing” section. I found I was able to get some speed and overtake / catch a few riders, whilst unfortunately some did the same to me on the clif climb.

Some top quality BS posted up above there.
How anyone can compare Pacing a short course XC race to a 10 mile TT is beyond me.

My only concrete advice would be to be careful what you glean from folk who write long posts with a lot of “I dunno” “I think” and other wee disclaimers.

Anyway, Ignore heart rate and power or whatever other measures you can display. I would take OldGits advice about “racing the man”. You don’t win races by averaging a certain heart rate, you win by going faster than everyone else. Race more and you will gain more experience in pacing.

I’d kind of agree with that. I’ve only ever worn my HRM for one race & that was the Mega last year.

As someone in their early 30’s I peaked at 203BPM & average 186 for the whole race. I did some training before I went, and used the hill outside my house for sprints. Going as hard and as long as I could before, I could barely break into the 190’s, and that was taking it to the point of heaving at the side of the road. Racing does funny things that sometimes you can’t recreate.

I hope to do the Gorrick on Sunday, as part of my winter training for enduro. Never raced XC in my life, so should be interesting.

How anyone can compare Pacing a short course XC race to a 10 mile TT is beyond me.

I didn’t…

Or at least, I compared their differences.

barrykellett – Member
You don’t win races by averaging a certain heart rate

Care to give Dave Brailsford a call? Its been mentioned on here, there are different methods, not just works for me, or him or even you…

I wasn’t comparing pacing a xc race with a road TT, I have done both types of event and I do realise the difference. The point I was trying to make was that you don’t necessarily need a HRM, you can go by how you feel. Unless you’re an elite racer, and I suspect the majority of STWers are not elite racers.
It doesn’t matter what I try to contribute to these threads, there’s always someone rubbishing what I say.

I always find that my heart rate automatically goes up if I’m in a race, even if I know I am going at an easy pace, my heartrate is always a several bpm higher when its a competition and once its up there, it tends to stay there through the race.

Thanks all. Will give the ramp-test a go if I get a chance.

I’m gonna record but not view hr next weekend and see what balls I’ve got. No more mr nice guy 😀

Can someone help me persuade Weeksy that racing is rewarding regardless of where you place- even against folk you know 😉 😀

Can someone help me persuade Weeksy that racing is rewarding regardless of where you place- even against folk you know

IT’s not where i would finish in relation to you that would bother me as such, it’;s the other vast majority of the field lol.

But it’s more than that for me. It’s more than just the speed/performance. MTBing for me isn’t about the head down, pinned, max HR type riding… i’ve tried that, done that and even recently trained like that… All that does then is suck all of the pleasure out of the ride. The ride is about picking little trails you see a signpost for, picking different routes just to see where it goes, stopping at the top of a hill for a drink and looking out into the distance. Crusing along a nice flat section, just slowly pedalling and enjoying being outside…

When training for racing and obviously in the actual races, you lose all of this, all of this becomes just pain and power and performance.

Sorry mate, it’s just not me.

I just feel guilty because you seemed up for the beast until our road ride…
And you seemed up for Gorrick until our Swinley ride….

I was mildly upset that Lewis stopped wanting to train with me, but I thought you were made of sterner stuff 😉

Do you not enjoy the new limits you find when racing? Even if you didn’t train one bit, I thought you enjoyed the adrenalin?

Do you not enjoy the new limits you find when racing? Even if you didn’t train one bit, I thought you enjoyed the adrenalin?

Yes of course, as you know, i’m a competitive person so i do enjoy it.. but not at the expense of the pleasure for the rest of my time on the bike.

TBH, the Beast was never hugely inspiring for me due to the ammount of road riding which as you know isn’t my big preferrence. It wasn’t the hardest decision ever to bail on the Beast.
I’ll happily train with you mate, don’t think for a second i won’t.

I’d prefer not to race for Team Billy No-mates 😉

My training has ground to a halt now.

My training focus has moved slightly mate, taking in a lot more rowing at the moment rather than cycling.

Crosshair. I’m afraid it goes a bit with the territory of racing that you loose some ride partners as your fitness/attitude changes.

You can either choose to continue as you were or embrace the whole thing and see where you can get to in a few years. Over time you will come across all sorts of new friends both on the racetrack or off. You don’t even have to be friends to enjoy their company. I spent an hour thrashing round a road track with a bunch of 16 yr olds at a race training session the other evening. Didn’t really speak a word to them but enjoyed their company and attitude (turn everything into a race) immensely.

I’m hoping to get my xc bike in working order this week (have been doing some tinkering) and hitting the Gorrick xc race on Sunday. You start to see the same old faces and I find I always have plenty of chats even though I always go to these event on my own, as none of my mates are into them. Usually starts with the guys you park next to in the car park! (I failed miserably at playing it cool when Ant White once pulled up next to me, but within minutes we were discussing lightweight valves and the logistics of getting a sofa into the back of a van)

What class do you race?

Lol! I didn’t mean to big myself up by my comments- I’m certainly not on the verge of going pro 😀
Only entered Fun Male this weekend and will make a decision whether to go Fun/Open at Crowthorn in Nov depending on how it goes- that’s the one I’m targeting really.

To elaborate a little, I met Weeksy on a m/c forum which has a cycling sub forum and we did Maxx Exposure together last year. Since then, we’ve jostled for position fitness wise but lately I’ve had the edge which seems to have impacted the amount of events he’s turned up to 😉 😀
As for my other friend- he was the guy who got me hooked on the Brecon Beast and last year we trained together most weekends. This year, once was enough to put him off despite me thinking I was waiting for him 😀

I don’t really mind racing alone, it’s just easier to keep perspective with another opinion to bounce off-of.

Maxx exposure (40 mile) was my first ever race as well.

First xc race was a Gorrick autumn series where I came 3rd in Masters. Thought I was a super hero in waiting so trained all winter then entered Super-masters in the spring series…

…First race I was leading by the end of the start straight but then whoooooosh, got passed by like half the field and was left contemplating my inadequacies as I followed their increasingly distant tyre tracks.

The rest of the spring followed much like that but by the end of it I was a much harder and more savvy racer and finally won a more local event which was nice after getting my arse handed to me over the previous months.

It get under your skin somehow.

Best moment was spending the final lap trying to break a fellow competitor that had been with me for a long while. Took the whole lap to whittle a 40m lead. One mistake and it’d have been all over, but I kept it together. That was racing for 13th spot.

Well survived the mudfest at Frith hill today 🙂
Probably not a fair test but needless to say I never had time to look at my HRM and I did hide it on the second screen too. Max was 190 (probably when running) and average 173. That’s largely because I had a quiet second lap with no one around. Would have been closer to 180 if I’d kept on like the first lap I think.

Not sure where I finished yet….

Finished 02nd which is cool so better move up to Open for the next round 🙂

CX seems to push the limits a little farther 😉 Averaged 178 and maxed at 191. Again, a quiet last lap meant the addrenalin deserted me or else it may have been higher still.
Stamina wasn’t really a problem- just not got the power to weight ratio I guess.

I’ve never bothered with HR when racing.

I just ride as fast as I can and try to keep up with whoever is in front of me. If I can’t then I’ll try to stay ahead of whoever is behind me. If I drop my group I’ll attack and try to catch the next one. The only exception is when riding in a group is beneficial, such as a flat course like Sherwood or Thetford as you can get a good draft on the fire roads.

A quiet lap??? No such thing – it’s a race! Full gas.

GB

I personally can’t push as hard when I’m all alone as when I’m in a running battle. I never looked at my hr today either, just captured it out of interest…