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I have been coaching Ian since the fall of 2011, and he has been a great athlete to work with. We spent the winter focusing on getting his body balanced from a tough season of hard racing around the world. He started doing Yoga 2-3x a week, along with some basic weight training and core work. He moved to Chico, Calif from his hometown of Bend, Oregon in order to be able to train more consistently throughout the winter in the good weather. He really made it a great winter with some excellent long road rides, mountain bike rides and tandem rides with his girlfriend. His focus for the 2012 season was to place in the Top 3 at one of the spring classics, finish in the Top 10 on GC at Tour of California with a possible effort for a stage win and then give it his best at the Tour De Avenir this last summer/early Fall. Ian has been right on track and been progressing well over the early season, showing many great signs of improvement. Ian is an admitted ‘power junkie’, watches his Performance Manager chart closer than I do sometimes, knows how to estimate TSS within 5 points of what he actually scores and loves reviewing, understanding and analyzing his data. Ian is sharp, clear headed and asks great questions that allow me to not only coach him, but teach him how to be a better cyclist, racer, athlete and person. He will go very far in this sport and already has the makings of a future star.
Now, to the race analysis of Stage 1- ATOCStage 1 Santa Rosa, California
ROUTE DETAILS
Day: Sun, May 13
Start: Santa Rosa
Finish: Santa Rosa
Miles: 115.9
KM: 186.5
Start: Santa Rosa
Finish: Santa Rosa
Miles: 115.9
KM: 186.5
Rider: Ian Boswell- Trek- Livestrong Team
Power Meter: SRAM Quarq Red
Power Meter: SRAM Quarq Red
Power Analysis Software: TrainingPeaks WKO+
Coach: Hunter Allen
Finish: 53rd place 4:42:35 – Front group
Ian had a great day in the saddle on the first day of the Amgen Tour of California. Ian has been riding very well this spring with a fine 2nd place at the U23 Liege-Bastogne-Liege event earlier this spring and his form has been building throughout May, with and great hand in hand teammate 1-2 finish with Lawson Craddock at the toughest stage of the Tour of Gila. Ian is definitely ready and has been knocking out some big wattage numbers here in the most recent weeks of training, so I am excited that he is racing one of the most prestigious and toughest stage races in the US.
Stage 1 of any stage race is always a bit nervous with every rider poised to attack at the chance to get any advantage. This typically means some crashes and some fast racing and this held true with a fast start at an average speed of 28mph for the initial three and half miles, but then once the breakaway was away, the pace slowed a bit, as many riders knew that the mountains coming later in the stage would be tough and saving energy would be critical. Fort Ross Road at 68 miles was the first test and it actually wasn’t too tough for Ian, and he was able to stay under his FTP of 415 watts easily at 370 watts. The hardest part of the stage came later on Coleman road, where Ian created his “Best 20 minutes” of the day at 407watts normalized(375 AP), while this was close to his FTP, Ian commented, “We hit the KOM with 25 guys, so yes, it was hard, but I felt good and under control.” At this point, with the peloton reduced to 25 of the strongest cyclists in the race, Ian was passing the stage 1 test with flying colors. The fast descent into Santa Rosa wasn’t fast enough as at least 25 more riders joined with the front group to make 56 man peloton at the finish where Peter Sagan sprinted past everyone for the stage win.
In Stage 1, Ian scored 258 Training Stress Score (TSS) points, did 4041kiloJoules of work, averaged 303 watts (normalized) for the entire 4:53 stage at an average speed of 24.3mph. Ian’s power was certainly up there in the same range of any major international stage race, so it’s great to see that he handled it so easily and proficiently. As he continues to excel throughout the ATOC, I’ll bring you more behind the scenes information along with sharing his power files with you as well. Hope you enjoy!
Hunter
-----IAN'S comments on the Stage 1 from his TrainingPeaks WKO+ file.
On 05/13/2012, Ian Boswell wrote TOC Stage 1. Good day felt okay. Tried once to go to the break hit 1231 watts then the break rolled and we went easy. I stopped 3 times in the first 2 hours to pee. Then the Garmin and RadioShack went to the front to start closing the gap. All was together over the fort Ross road. Felt okay and a very on/off climb. Then the pace on the ocean ramped again as we closed in on Coleman valley. I started far back my bad and made a big effort to make it to the front but yes I went over the top with the lead group of 20-25. Felt good!! Then sat on as rabo worked hard. With 5 km to go a big group rejoined us from behind and then just before 3km to go a crash happened at the front splitting the group. I made it through but had to come to a stop and was the last rider to make the winning group you can see that from 3-2km to go I worked hard to catch on to the quick rolling group.
[Downloaded into TrainingPeaks WKO+ software, uploaded into TrainingPeaks.com 5/14/2012 11:33:40 AM]
