Segment Analysis

I've mentioned before how cool Strava is, being able to compare historical times over segments you've ridden before. I found a new application for it after this weekends race. I picked out a couple of key sections of the trail (climbs and descents) and compared my time through those segments for each lap. The results are below, and matched my perception of the race. Segments in order through the trail are on the left, laps are across the top. Times highlighted in green were my best efforts of the day, yellow were 2nd, and red are worst.

2012 Mellow Johnny's Classic segment comparison

Just like I suspected, I went out too hard at the beginning, and accordingly set my best times on the segments early in the lap. I then blew up about halfway through, and the end of lap 1 was my worst of the day. This was also my worst full lap of the day. Early in lap 2 I was still recovering, and had my worst results of the day on the early segments. I started recovering about halfway through the race, the end of lap 2 was getting better and I set my fastest time on the last climb. Lap 3 I was much more consistent, not having my worst time on any segment and setting my personal best on 2 segments when I was really in chase mode picking off riders who'd passed me earlier. I got held up in a technical section on the final climb by a downed rider, I suspect without this I'd have closely matched or beaten my effort up the climb on the lap before. I certainly would've set my fastest lap of the day without the interruption.

This example serves as great reinforcement of the importance of pacing yourself. If I hadn't gone out so hard, I wouldn't have wasted so much time recovering from blowing up and would've undoubtedly had a better finishing time overall. It might seem important to stay with the leaders through the early part of the race and not be stuck in traffic, but whenever you blow up you will lose all the ground you earned and then some. Know how hard you can go for the duration of the race and stick to that pace, that will produce your best possible result.