Steve's story: 100km relay world record

BaseCamp athlete Steve Owens shared his experience setting a world record.

Back in mid January I got a call from a teammate asking if I wanted to go for a world record. I was obviously intrigued and asked for the details. The event was a four man 100km relay on the San Diego velodrome using time trial bikes. Looking at the demands of the event and the BaseCamp schedule, I determined that the mid-March date of the event would be ideal for the effort. So much so that the effort on the track closely mirrored Saturday’s FTP progressions workout.

As it turned out the "world record" had yet to be established, so our four-man team would be setting it. Still, I wanted to put something up that was respectable and would take some effort to beat. Our initial team strategy was for each rider to take 6km pulls in a set order. As time went on, we adjusted our individual pull durations and our time goals. When we got to the 50km mark, we noted our time and came up with a target goal for the event. Based on how everyone was riding, it resulted in my having to take longer pulls in order to make our time goal.

I have to say that BaseCamp training prepared me very well for this. I was able to maintain speed for long stretches without much fatigue. The timing official marveled at the lap time consistency I was able to maintain over the entire event. I credit that to all of our long Tempo and Sweet Spot intervals.

I do feel like there were two limiters, both of which were specific to riding on the track. The first was shoulder soreness. I spent a lot of time leaning left on the aero bars, which put an undue strain on that shoulder. Menachem likely has some specific exercises for this. The other was micro pacing the track. Because of the frequent turns and short straightaways, I found it difficult to maintain a consistent power. After speaking with the director of the velodrome, I learned that he generally uses normalized power on the track due to the difference in output on the turns versus the straights. This seems to me to be a skill that can be learned with practice.

I was given the honor of taking the last pull for our team and bringing it home. All in all it was a fun experience with the added bonus of raising funds for San Diego VeloYouth. Our team is already talking about doing it again next year.

As this year's BaseCamp has a definite squirrel theme, I included a photo below of one of the ground squirrels that calls the Velodrome home. They live on the infield and dig tunnels around the inner track. As soon as management covers up a hole with a traffic cone, the squirrels inevitably dig another exit.