Book of Chad

The Nanaimo course was another limited climbing course; however, it felt like climbing for the first half of each lap, and the elevation chart on training peaks agrees with that feeling. The uphill just wasn’t very steep, which means a lot of pedaling. I am happy to pedal, though, as it seems the more time you can spend putting in pedal strokes per lap, the better the course suits me. The course had only a few open passing areas; otherwise, it was a lot of singletrack. With that in mind, I decided to take a different approach than the last race and just go as hard as I could up the road start section, and that would hopefully land me in the top three going into the first singletrack section. The day before the race, Lindsay and I were talking about strategy, and I planned to go really hard at the start and get to the singletrack first. I’m not sure exactly about the conversation, but she asked how I thought I would do on this course, and I said that I’m probably going to win the race. She said that I was trying the positive self-talk approach. I knew, however, that my training was going well and, with our “A” race only a few weeks away and currently tapering, I had a real good chance of having a really good ride.

We lined up for the start slightly further down the road than I expected, which I don’t think was good for my plan of going all out to the single track, but it also wasn’t really bad as I know I can climb well after expending my sprint energy. I got off to a really fast start and from the front row, my competitors were quickly behind me. I only got five seconds in when I pulled my right foot out of my pedal. I had to sit down and get it back in, and although I was still ahead at that point, I had lost quite a bit of momentum and the gap that I had made was completely diminished. I went well in the second phase when the cement turned to dirt; however, I was not able to keep that speed up and with 20 feet or so to the single track, four guys had made it between me and my goal. Special mention to Derek Anderson, who on a single speed had made it level with me and then decided it was better not to go that hard any longer. I entered the single track in fifth, and we were all single file, front tire to back. Since I really went deep into the red, I had to recover a little bit and spent the next eight minutes at 270w NP. During this first half of the lap, the guy in first just rode away from us. However, I was solo in fifth with second to fourth just a few meters ahead of me. Over the top and onto the flat and downhill, more technical part, I was reeling in the group ahead of me. Every once in a while, I would lose ground to a surge in the group, but I was steadily gaining on them. I caught up to them and was really starting to recover while I followed the group. I had planned to follow them for the rest of the lap, and when we got back to the uphill road, I was going to put in another really hard effort, and hopefully that would let me get into the single track ahead of all, or at least some, of my group.

On the final trail before the end of the lap, my back wheel started skidding, and I came to a stop right at the top of a steeper section. I had a stick lodged in my back wheel, and I had to get off the bike to take it out and then get started again. I went through the lap only ten seconds back from the group, and I made it all back on the uphill road section. As we entered the single-track section, we were all in a line again; however, that effort was a little too much for me, and I found myself gapped again. I kept it steady and recovered a bit, keeping the group in sight. I thought that I had reeled them in this way before, so I can do it again. The group had split when I got back in contact with the fourth pace ride, Brett Whitehead. I had chased pretty hard again to catch him, and although he offered to let me pass in an open section on the climb, I declined the offer as I needed to recover and thought that I would get him on the next lap road section after all, he is quite good on the downhill. When we went through the lap, he had taken five seconds on me, and I chased up the hill again, making contact and then chasing throughout the whole climb. I made a couple of small mistakes, and the gap went out. In the end, I finished as I entered the very first single-track section in fifth, 23 seconds behind Brett and 49 seconds off the podium. I am really happy with my performance, even though I didn’t quite achieve the result I wanted. I beat most of the guys that I have had tight races with this year, and I achieved my best result so far this year at the same time.

Time: 1:25:24
Distance: 24.2 km
Avg Heart Rate: 185 bpm
Max Heart Rate: 194 bpm
Normalized Power: 256 W
Place: 5 th