Did my first 4Hr MTB XC race on the weekend. The fitness data here helped me to do a great taper and be fresh on race day. I wasn’t really prepared for a 4Hr race though, I only decided to enter it two weeks ago and haven’t done a ride more than about 2Hrs duration in a few months. I don’t have power meter on the MTB yet, so only have HR data. I was surprised to see my avg HR for the second lap as it didn’t feel anywhere near as hard as that. After 2 hours I still felt good but decided to back off a bit since I didn’t know how I was going to go over the full race duration. I felt it a bit in the last two laps, more so the upper body and arms than the legs. Looking back I think I could have probably maintained similar pace in the 2nd half. I finished mid pack in my age group (40-49). As a first race I’m pretty happy given the lack of preparation and I know a number things I can work on for the next one in 9 weeks time. I’ll start with doing some weekly 4Hr+ rides and regular weight training again.
I would love to get any tips on pacing a race like this. Based on the times and laps completed I may have finished top5 or even got on the podium if I had maintained my pace. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my heart rate so high for so long, but RPE was much lower than my HR suggested.
Nice effort. As I’m in some kind of similar situation with my racing I can share my tips as doing this will help me act according to them during my race this weekend
My tip 1: If you really want to limit yourself using metrics like power or heartrate do it in the first half of the XCM race only (XCO is different because of the course bottlenecks).
My tip 2: Unless you aim for certain result (i.e. podium) and really don’t want to risk it loosing it you should take the risk of going too hard. If it happens you will get very valuable information about your limits early in the season. I very much prefer not finishing up to my capabilities because of going too hard to knowing I didn’t give everything I had on that day.
My tip 3: Don’t take the risk of going out of food or having too long a breaks between gels or snacks. Carrying extra food gives confidence in going hard even if you don’t ingest it.
Thanks, I like this tip a lot. As this was my first race it was really just about seeing where I’m at. Now that I know where I’m at this is how I intend to approach the next race. I just put a deposit on a XC bike today and should have it by the weekend. I hope to have a power meter on it before the next race in July so should have both power and HR to help with pacing.
My nutrition/hydration plan was pretty good and mostly well executed. I had a gel flask that I hadn’t used before and discovered during the race that Gu doesn’t flow through the bite valve very well. It was the second flask so in the second half of the race I didn’t get as much carbs as I had planned. But I still had the mini bite sized pancakes with mixed berries and choc chips, as well as 60g/L carbs in my 3L Camelbak. That ran out on the last lap and I had a water bottle on the bike with plain water. So hydration worked out exactly as planned and expected, nutrition was close to how I planned. My nutrition plan was based on data from a 2.5Hr ride on that track a few weeks before, so I knew what to expect in terms of estimated calories consumed and it was pretty spot on in that respect.
IMHO given this, I would rather start the race on the over conservative side of things aiming for negative splitting it.
This is the advice I always give to my athletes 9 out of 10 times.
I never heard complains like “I wish I had started faster”. However, the opposite is always happening.
Unless the course or the expected race dynamics advise so, start slower to finish faster is my mantra at departure line because I failed too many times due to over pacing the first 30 minutes.
That was never going to be a problem for this one. It was a mass start and I placed myself mid pack for the start. About 300m from the start everyone got funnelled into a downhill single track. I think the only people at risk of over pacing the first 30min in this one were those who started at the very front and sprinted from the start
Honestly it wasn’t so bad. In the rider’s briefing the announcer was saying things like “if you don’t have shaved legs or a sock tan, please let the faster riders in front of you for the start” The self seeding seems to have worked pretty well. I did get held up a little in the bottleneck but a 4Hr race isn’t won at the start
The self seeding seems to have worked pretty well. I did get held up a little in the bottleneck but a 4Hr race isn’t won at the start