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This past Saturday was El Tour de Phoenix. The ride
started at Red Mountain Park, right down the street from my house so I
just rode to the starting line. J You can see the course route at:
http://www.pbaa.com/!ETP/ETPMap05.pdf
According to the unofficial results, I finished 48th out of 661
finishers. I was hoping for a top 20 finish, but this wasn’t one of my
primary goal events so I wasn’t at a performance peak before this race.
So I’m happy with my result. Below is the ride report I sent to my
coach.
Enjoy!
Mike
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I think this was my last El Tour de Phoenix, at least at a fast pace.
The front pack is just getting too crazy. I was maintaining my line, but
got bumped at least three or four times when I was riding back in the
group. So I spent most of my time up front sharing the work. Like last
year, my heart rate didn’t get recorded again during the ride. When I
tried starting it several times at the starting line, it kept coming up
blank, even with a heart touch. I looked around and it seemed like
everyone around me had a Polar with a coded strap, so it was definitely
confused.
The start wasn’t bad, we kept a pretty fast pace, but it was with a tail
wind, so the pack stayed together. Going down University was the first
spot that I got bumped, so I went to the front until the turn on Alma
School, then I got stuck back in the pack again. When we turned onto
McKellips I went back to the front or near the front until the turn onto
Hayden. There were about five of us working the front with a team that
kept attacking then dropping back, so a lot of accelerations. I got
bumped twice going up Shea, once pretty hard on the climb. My legs were
feeling pretty good, but right before the steep part of the climb a
tandem took off the front and I made the mistake of trying to get on its
wheel and I popped. So the lead group dropped me near the top of Shea
and they kept a fast pace on the other side. I wasn’t able to get back,
but a second group had formed. There were six of us working a rotating
pace line trying to get back on the way up beeline. We got close once,
but couldn’t do it. I think we had over 25 people in the group, but most
of them were just sucking wheel.
We did have a tandem with us and we really kicked our speed up when they
went to the front after the turn down Bush highway. The wind was pretty
strong (a head wind up Beeline and a cross wind down Bush Highway). I
was the first one over the hill after Saguaro Lake and got my speed up
to 43 on the way down. The group had thinned out by then, but I don’t
know exactly how many people we had with us. It seemed like we were all
working good together to the turn on Usery Pass though. Usery was hard.
I probably worked too hard up to that point and probably wasn’t fully
recovered from last weekend. The bottom line was I couldn’t keep up and
got dropped again. But I did pass several people on the way up. I tried
to stay close to that tandem, but they stayed just a bit too far away
and I knew they were going to hit it hard at the top and they did. When
I got to the top I couldn’t see any groups ahead of me and I was by
myself. I kept my speed pretty high (around 30ish) all the way to the
turn onto McKellips. Then I hit the headwind and struggled to the turn
for Crismon. The crosswind didn’t bother me too much and I made good
time to University, then I maintained high 20’s. Right after Ellsworth a
group of three caught me and we worked together to Power. I pulled us
most of the way down Power. No one wanted to pull at that point so our
speed dropped off. Platinum time was supposed to be faster than 3:05 and
we had already past that. Someone finally took the front at Adobe.
Shortly after we turned on Brown, I attacked (just because) and they
didn’t follow, so I made the final turn alone. Just after I crossed the
line at 13:13:06, Richard announced that the group approaching the line
(the guys I was with) would be the last group to get Platinum. The
winning time was 3:03, so they extended the Platinum time to 3:15.
Woohoo!
I wanted to finish with the lead group, but that didn’t happen. Given
the ride last week and that I still made a Platinum time today with all
the work I did at the front of groups, I’m happy with my time. No knee
pain, but I definitely felt my legs on my stairs at home. Why did I buy
a two story house again?
Mike
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