Another relatively flat stage today. It's already underway and the coverage is about to start on OLN. Grab your notebook computer, get some work done and watch the Tour. Go Lance!
Chris Carmichael, Lance's coach, was on before the coverage began. He described how Lance always wears a heart rate monitor and a power output sensor. He sends these files each night to Carmichael (during training) and he analyzes. The critical piece, he said, was the relation between heart rate at a given output level.
This makes sense to me. I may have to get a power sensor. If, for example, last week I output 250 watts at 150 beats per minute but this week I'm only outputting 225 watts at 150 beats per minute then maybe I'm getting overtrained. The key is that unlike cadence or speed, the power sensor measures terrain-agnostic power output.
Update: 42 miles or so to go. Breakaway of six riders is away. They have an advantage of around 4 minutes that's been at that point for a while. Lance got into a wreck early in the race but not a bad one and it doesn't look like he was injured. Hamilton had another flat tire. Phonak has had a huge number of flats... speculation that they've chosen the wrong tire partner. Fairly boring stage so far. Getting a lot of work done while I watch.
Update: The commentators always describe that the way to win a stage using a breakaway is to build a massive lead in the first half and then slowly get reeled in for the second half, hopefully winning by just a short lead at the end. Not sure I agree with this. From a performance perspective you want to maintain a constant pace throughout. Doing so will give you the best speed overall. So it seems like the goal would be to breakaway to something like 3 minutes and then at that point find a pace that's just slightly above the peleton. Slowly extend your lead over time. Now, maybe my proposition doesn't work because the peleton itself demands less effort to go at a given speed. This likely changes the dynamics of a race, but it seems consistent to me that if you're on a breakaway your goal is to get to the end as quickly as possible. The way to do that is via constant speed.
Still not much happening. The peleton is starting to reel the breakaway in. They're down around 3:17.
Update: The breakaway is down below two minutes. 17 miles to go.
Update: Breakaway down to 1:12 with 8.3 miles to go. Sprinters in the peleton have sent their teams to the front to catch the breakaway. They've had more trouble reeling them in than they expected.
Update: 18 seconds with 2.5 miles to go. Amazingly Fletcher seems to be holding the breakaway. All the other members of the breakaway have slipped back to the peleton. He's got to fend them off for another 3 minutes or so.
Update: 9 seconds with 1.4 miles. He's got a chance.
Update: 5 seconds with 1.2 miles to go.
Update: With less than a mile left they catch him. 173km on a breakaway and he gets caught so close to the end.
Update: Crash with 1K left. Peleton split.
Update: Tom Boonan wins on the sprint.
Update: The wreck was at the 1km split. Rules say that if you have a wreck within the last 1km you get the same time as the group that you were with. Half the peleton wrecked but they'll all get the same time.
Fairly boring race overall but the finish was very interesting. Lance didn't lose anything today.
25 Min Stationary Bike, 20 Min Treadmill Run