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My first race too!! neat information.

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01 / Original postMy first race too!! neat information.stormer94 · 19 Jun 2004 02 / This pagePosts 1–11Page 1 of 1 · chronological order 03 / Latest replyPost #11stormer94 · 29 Jun 2004

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Original section
Road Cycling
Published
19 June 2004
Last activity
29 June 2004
Original author
stormer94
Posts
11
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Public discussion
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Topics
CadenceHeart rate trainingRace licensingClimbingCranksets

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  1. Original post
    stormer94
    Archived post
    #1

    Race was good. Thanks all for the ideas.

    I actually won my age group and was first overall. 😄

    I ran the 10 miles in an offical time of 32:32, and I'm quite happy with the results. My heart rate information is off a few seconds, plus or minus, depending on when I hit the dang button. 🙂

    (bows to the crowd and thanks the folks on the cycling forum for all the great tips)

    Right off the bat myself and this other guy pulled ahead and we started working together at about the 1 mile mark (we chatted for about the first 3 miles, and then we got more to business). That was fun, I had no idea how much drafting off another rider helps. My pulse would be about 150 and I just figure it was his turn, I'd pull back, he'd take the lead and my pulse would drop to about 135 in no time flat. I was just looking at the heart rate monitor information and you can see that I had about 4 times where I touched 130 on the down side. We could have worked a bit harder than we did. But "Technically", I suppose the goal is to work as little as possible and still win. No sense running at 90%mhr if you don't need to.

    With one mile to go, we pulled along side each other and I yelled over, "You ready"? He yelled back, "NOW???" It was funny. It looks as though over the last mile we slowed the pace from about 20mph to 17mph as we sized up the sprint situation. I finally grabbed a few teeth and started the sprint with about 1/3 mile to go. Worked out perfect. I crossed the line at 169 pulse and 30mph for the win.

    In a way, I'm bummed, I feel I could have gone faster, my training is generally higher paced. My average pulse when training is right at 150 or more. We only touched that a few times and I feel I was not even close to suffering in any way. Just a freindly ride. If I had to look at the chart and pick a number, I'd say pulse was 140 average. In fact, according to the HRM, pulse on the first half averaged 142 to the half way point, and 143 on the second half to the finish.

    I averaged 18.2mph on the first half and 19.8 on the second half.

    Great fun, can't wait to do it again next year. 🙂

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  2. stormer94
    Archived post
    #2

    Picture after lunch and stuff. Nope, didn't ride in those shorts... heheh. :p

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  3. JAPANic
    Archived post
    #3

    Good for your confidence....

    Congratulations..........

    Was it a flat course or a hill climb?

    I'm doing my 4th race next Sunday over about the same distance....
    If I finish in the top 8 I can go up to the next level.....

    How many miles have you done since you started riding seriously?

    Looks like you didn't have much competition to worry about either. which was lucky.

    Your heart will go much harder and your bike much faster when you run up against some evenly matched riders, so train harder and don't get too carried away.....

    I wish I could have a 1st place under my belt but my best is an 11th so far.....

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  4. stormer94
    Archived post
    #4

    I've had a few people email about how I got that cool graph and what heart rate monitor I used. Here is that information, hope it is useful for those that are interested. 🙂

    The HRM I used was the Polar 720i. They've been out for a while and I think the price is lower now too (I think I paid just short of $400 with the extras, likely $275-$300 for the unit itself). I liked all the features that you can get for it too (I'd love to own the power sensors, but they are quite a bit of money and I don't know that they are really going to help a novice rider, I'm just kind of a gadget geek, so this stuff fits right in...LOL). I bought the optional cadence sensor, and the USB IR reader as well. I initially had a heck of a time getting the IR reader to read the watch, and then found out that I installed the drivers in the wrong directory. It was work, back and forth on the Polar website looking for information, but got it working and am tickled pink.

    The regular computer on the bike is the Cateye astrale 8. I leave that one on Cadence, time, distance. The Polar I leave on Heart rate, speed, stopwatch. The polar pickups are all wireless, and there's one on the front wheel and one on the down tube and I use the magnet that's already on the crank arm from the cateye to also fire the Polar cadence sensor, and it seems to work fine.

    I've got a cateye hr200dw on back order, but may cancel that. I like the information I'm getting from the Polar 720i. Although I'm not sure if it's me or not, but I haven't been able to get speed, cadence and heart rate on the same graph. Seems like a one or the other kind of thing. Likely it's me and my "rookieness" with the unit and software.

    Spend some time with the 720i and the manual, it's a lot of stuff and information to take in and setup. I left the computer and the manual in the bathroom so I could read up when I found myself with some "spare time". 🙂

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  5. stormer94
    Archived post
    #5

    JAPANic,

    Thanks. 🙂

    Pretty flat course. I think you can kind of see it on the chart, the speed is pretty consistent, 18mph out, near 20 on the way back.

    I've only put 700 miles on this bike. But I've put a LOT of time in on my elliptical trainer, so I have a good base fiteness (not superhuman, but good general "I'm a 40 year old guy" fitness). Just needed to help build some leg strength by spinning on the bike and speed too. I know my leg speed was down when I started trying to build bicycle performance. It seemed like 85 cadence was FLYING!, then 90 was flying, then 100 seemed like I would hop off the bike from bouncing (bad form on my part). Now that I'm getting more used to it, 90-100 seems pretty normal and I've spend some time peddling at 105 and it seems to be working.

    There was a guy here at the race (top category rider in a different division) that is putting in what he said was 3-4 hours a day in the saddle... CRIKEY!!! It showed too, the guy was fast, no doubt about it. But for the time I am able to put in, maybe an hour a day for total body fitness (cycling, weight lifting, etc), I am quite happy with what I am able to achieve. I'm trying to build and inhabit a healthy, lean, but muscular, body. I'm getting close. I weighed 230 pounds a year ago at 5'10" and was kind of disgusted with myself. Have been eating better and working hard and now weigh about 179 and feel I am in pretty good shape. I'm not going back...😄

    I think I'd rather have had an 11th place finish, now my head is get all big and I'm gonna be hard to live with because I had a good race... LOL.

    I will say that I learned a few things. The most important being that racing is almost something a person should do to stay motivated and have fun. You get to meet people with similar interests, have some fun and learn new stuff. PLUS, it gives a person something tangible to have for all those hours of training. Sure, it's fun to be fit, but passing a rider and putting some distance on them makes you feel like you have accomplished something for your time.

    Just like in the race I was just in, with about 1/3 to 1/4 mile to go, I started the sprint, side by side with this other rider. I gave it all I had, I was crushing the pedals all the way, it was AWESOME, I felt like superman!!!!! I crossed the line at 30mph and put nealry 20 seconds on the guy that was beside me just a minute earlier. 20 seconds! 😄 Knowing myself, how much gas I had in the tank, and seeing that I could perform to my best (not saying it's good or anything, just my best) made me feel pretty good all day. I had been working out, and it paid off on race day.

    I know it was a small local kind of thing, but it was the TDF to me, and I was happy to have the opportunity to do it. 🙂 Can't wait until next year.

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  6. JAPANic
    Archived post
    #6

    I'll be trying to emualte you on Sunday then....

    I know one guy in the race is much faster than me, so my plan is to stay with him till the last bend and then see who has the most gas in the tank up the final 100m hill sprint....

    BTW

    I haver the same watch as you.... it's good to look at the graphs after races and training...still not using it as effectively as it is designed for, but hey! I'm a 40 year old with wife & kids to distract me....

    Ride harder!!!!

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  7. stormer94
    Archived post
    #7

    JAPANic,

    40 Years old with wife and kids??? We sound like the same guy! 🙂

    Good luck man! Hang off the guys wheel as long as possible and then GET 'EM! 😄

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  8. JAPANic
    Archived post
    #8

    My bike is like yours too...

    Image in My first race too!! neat information.

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  9. stormer94
    Archived post
    #9

    Well, it would seem we have good taste too. 😄

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  10. bone
    Archived post
    #10

    Stormer,
    Congratulations and thanks for the post, I enjoy reading that kind of stuff. I damn near went out and up-graded my polar to the 720 so I could generate those graphs!
    Keep it up, Bone

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  11. stormer94
    Archived post
    #11
    Quoted post said:

    Originally posted by bone
    Stormer,
    Congratulations and thanks for the post, I enjoy reading that kind of stuff. I damn near went out and up-graded my polar to the 720 so I could generate those graphs!
    Keep it up, Bone

    I'm with ya, I'm a sucker for this electronic gizmo stuff!!! Makes excercising more fun and interesting.

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