Diamond Valley Road Race

Hello from Reno,

This past weekend I competed in the Diamond Valley Road Race held in NE California.  This was a USA Cycling event and I raced CAT 3,4,5 which included four 11 mile loops with back to back climbs.

I recently purchased a Garmin 405 from Boulder Running Company in the Denver Tech Center, and I have fallen in love with training again for all the cool data it provides.  You can find a summary of the race here: http://connect.garmin.com/activity/41691273 and now for the play by play.

I started the watch about 1min before the race start, if I leave it until the last second I always forget, and I stopped the watch a couple of minutes after the race ended; I wasn’t thinking straight after discovering a new max heart rate, 197bpm! 

The race started with about 45-50 guys on a neutral start and then long gradual down hill.  Riding at 38mph with 50 dudes in a 3,4,5 race will make your hands cramp really quick from all the breaking.  About half way through the loop we started two back to back climbs, and on the first lap I would say we dropped about 1/4 of the field.  As the loops went on, with the 101 degree temps, we continued dropping riders until 11 of us remained after the second climb on the 3rd lap.

Going through the neutral water zone starting the final lap I was liking my chances as I had been one of the best climbers in our group soI was thinking of making a move on the first climb.  The first climb on each loop starts immediately after a sharp, downhill, right hander, and coming off that turn someone else in the group beat me to the punch.  I stood up to chase and my left quad turned to rocks; between the heat and the longer race distance I was cramping and it was all I could do to survive the two climbs with the group.  Two riders got away, but thankfully we pulled them back on the long approach to the finish.  During this time I drank a ton of water and shook out my quad a bit, thankfully the cramp didn’t make a return.

Now it was time to turn my attention to the sprint that would determine the finish.  I was a little frustrated that I couldn’t get away on the climbs, especially looking at the size of some of the legs that were with me for the finish.  These guys were bigger and heavier so the climbs were definitely harder on them but they would have the advantage in the sprint.  We hit 100m to go and our pace line turned into a frantic dash for the line.  It seemed like guys were all over the place and there were only 11 of us, I can’t imagine what this is like during a tour stage with 100 strong.  I had enough fire in me to nab a 5th place finish, I can live with that.

My favorite part of the Garmin data is the finish, a long, straight road, very slightly up hill and just a touch of head wind.  You can see I hit 38ish mph, they guy who won may have been 39.  It is amazing to me that under similar conditions after 150 miles of riding tour sprinters can get into the high 40mph range.

Another cool piece of data is that my average HR kept increasing each lap.  Aside from the finish sprint no lap was really faster or more difficult than any other.  I’m not sure what this means; my best guess is that it is just fitness related and that with more time on the bike and better fitness my heart rate would become more consistent.  Please chime in if you agree or know otherwise.

This weekend is the Pyramid Lake triathlon so I’ll try to get similar data on the bike and run legs, and next weekend is the big Mt Rose TT which should provide a pretty mean average heart, 13ish miles at 5.6-7 average grade.

Best Regards,

Matt