First of all, have a read of the Ultan Coyle, the winner’s, report here – a totally different approach than my own yielding similar (though better) results:

www.rapha.cc – twenty four hours later

Scherrit and I went over my power files from the Mersey Roads and they threw up some interesting observations.

My average and normalised power was down on the ESCA 2011 event by around 10W, but I cycled 30mi/50k further. Some of this can be put down to aerodynamic changes – using a deeper front wheel, using rear disc covers, wearing a skinsuit and of course the change to midfoot cleat setup which lowered me by ~20mm. I’m a little suspicious of the accuracy of the 2011 Powertap values as well, since that particular wheel ended up having its torque tube replaced after the season.

Pacing was better this year than in 2011 with Variability Index of 1.07 rather than 1.09. I put this down to the course being flatter, taking out the spikes and troughs for climbing and coasting and experience with the event allowing me to continue at a certain effort whilst feeling like rubbish on the bike.

We noticed that my initial power goals were much too high given what I finished with even though it felt like I was on target with my pacing. I really have no idea how often I’m checking the power meter during a race though so I’m wary of lowering my target power in case overall goes down. I think I’m checking power frequently at the beginning but seem to move onto riding by feel during the later stages. This is unproven though – I just can’t remember.

Although I felt good for the first 12 hours of the event, the power data shows that I was in steady decline. Perhaps the all-gel fueling wasn’t as good as I thought? Perhaps I should’ve started slower and held a higher constant power/pace. Interestingly though, the bits of the race this year when I felt really bad were still reasonably quick (losing perhaps 5k over all) whereas when it all went pear-shaped in last year’s event, my speed really tanked for long periods of time (like 26kph for 2 hours!) and cost me an estimated 15-20k over the race.

This year I was stopped for around 35 minutes whereas last year I was stopped for around an hour – that would equate to around a 15-16 kilometre improvement.

One other difference I made note of was the technicality of the Mersey Roads finishing circuit compared to the circuit used in the East Sussex race. The Mersey circuit was mostly small, skinny roads with quite a few twists and turns. This might explain the lower amount of pedaling during the final hours and the slower speed compared to ESCA 24. I need to double check if I was actually slower at the finish..

With a further reduction in stoppages and working on the mood swings and tiredness in the early hours as well as further work on fueling I think it would be possible for me to crack the 500 mile mark. Am I stupid enough to try it again though?

Maybe.