ROUTE DETAILS
Day: Wed, May 16
Start: Sonora
Finish: Clovis
Miles: 130.2
KM: 209.6
Rider: Ian Boswell- Trek- Livestrong Team
Power Meter: SRAM Quarq Red
Power Analysis Software: TrainingPeaks WKO+
DOWNLOAD the WKO+ file HERE
Coach: Hunter Allen
Finish: 46th place –Front group
It’s a saw tooth route that keeps on coming at you. Nothing crazy, but climb after climb finally takes its toll and wears you down by the end of the day. Ian rode well today, tried once to get in a big early move, but that was caught and then he just sat in the peloton, ate , drank (18 bottles!), rested and stayed out of trouble. With Jens Voigt at the front of the peloton pretending he was on his own personal training ride, the peloton was content to let Jens pull and enjoy the scenery.
Interestingly, even though the route didn’t have one major obstacle, it was selective. The length of the stage(130miles) and the amount of cumulative climbing(9491 feet of elevation gain) definitely took the toll as the front group again was right around 50 riders with 48 riders on the same time at the finish. Ian’s stats for the stage are: 270 TSS, 4277 kJ’s, Normalized power- 293, average speed 23.9. When Ian accumulates 270 TSS for a stage, it means that his body accumulated the same amount of training stress as nearly 2:45 minutes at his FTP. 100 TSS = 1 hour at FTP, so every 100 TSS you accumulate, your body feels like it has the same amount of training stress as an hour time trial.
Ian’s best 20 minutes today happened in from mile 16.5 to 23, as the pace ramped up at the front going over the first short climb up the Moccasin road. For this section, his normalized power (power he would have done had he pedaled continuously and smoothly) was 394 watts with the average power at 365 watts.
The finish was fast and Ian got to the front to help one of his teammates for the sprint and that last 2k was fast at an average speed of 33.5mph!
Ian should do well in the Time Trial on Stage 5 in Bakersfield and I am not sure if we’ll get a power file or not, but hope so!
Ian writes in his Post Race notes:
On 05/16/2012, "GRINDER". Hot long and day of grinding. I went on one early group but it was too big and was caught after a few km. Then the climbing began, a group of 12 went away with all pro tour teams and the pace behind in the group ramped shortly after. Today was never hard and in selective but it was just a day of grinding as Jens Voigt smashed the front the group. After 4 hours I had averaged 245 which it high for a race. We then had a long downhill to Clovis I helped the sprinter at 10km to go and then got out of the way with about 4km to go. Today hurt, my legs are tired but a TT tomorrow and I will recover tonight. And will recover tonight. Lots of food and water on the bike today. 18 bottles. ***
[Downloaded from TrainingPeaks WKO+ software and uploaded into TrainingPeaks.com 5/17/2012 5:49:59 AM]
