I set the alarm for 3:30am and plan to have breakfast and leave no later than 4:30. It is a two hour drive. With a start time of 7:40, I worked backwards from that giving myself thirty minutes of warm-up plus ten minutes of fudge-factor in addition to packet pick-up etc.. I hardly ever need an alarm and Saturday morning was no different. My eyes flew open at 2:45, wide awake. Pook! Had I gone to sleep at 8:45 instead of 10:45, that wouldn't have been so bad. As it was, I had plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast and a non-scheduled shower and still leave at 4:15. Unsurprisingly, there were only a handful of cars on the road.
Ten years ago, when I first acquired my Felt B-2 time trial bike, I left it in the car while I warmed-up on my road bike. When I dragged it out to race it created quite a stir. Besides the surprise factor, this eliminates getting a flat right before you start. This is now part of my routine.
My warm-up didn't go well. I had the devil of a time getting my heart-rate up and my quads were telling me they wanted an hour before being ready to race. About twenty minutes of riding and the HR finally topped 110 and started moving into zone three, topping out at 135. The legs were tepid at best. Neither boded well for a good race. Plus, we had the wind in our face on the outward leg.
I switched bikes, went potty one more time, strapped on the aero helmet, and checked in at the start line. On schedule, so I had one more warm-up loop to make before getting in line. As last year's winner I had the privilege of going last.
Richard can beat me like a drum in a road race, but hasn't concentrated on time trials. Bob and I are closer in abilities, but he is definitely the stronger. Just not in the time trial. I've written about Fred lots of times, another strong road racer but not a time trialist.
My strategy was pretty simple: higher cadence, lighter gear on the way out and higher gear on the way back. I followed the strategy, but envisioned 90+ as my high cadence and 85 as a low. Turns out I was closer to 85 out and 80 back, with a fair amount of time in the 70's. But the speed was good. I did a lot of gear shifting although I don't think I used more than three gears after the start. It took about a minute for my HR to reach 140, but the average of 148 with a top of 153 indicates I held 90% of max for thirty-one of the thirty-three and a half minutes of the race. Ah the legs. I pampered them for maybe ten minutes before applying power. They were much happier when we hit the turn-around.
I had no idea how I was doing compared to the others. I caught Fred, my one-minute man, before the turn, but was too busy fighting the wind to see if I made up any time on the others. Truthfully, I figured I'd earned third place. But there is one spot in the race I thought I could make up time. At about the 10.5 mile mark, right after an intersection, the road turns up, just topping at 3.3%. Rather than fight to hold speed, I took it easy and gathered myself for a last push. Once on flat road my speed picked up, HR held steady with just a beat or two tick upwards, cadence was steady until the finish line was in sight. A classic finish, top speed and cadence.
I took about a ten minute cool down, got everything back in the car, re-hydrated, then waited for the awards ceremony. The hour and a half or so wait allowed us old guys to stand around and talk. The younger age categories have new people coming in, but us old guys rarely see a newcomer. Therefore, we all know each other. Richard and Bob had to be introduced to each other, but I'd known each of them for several years. Bob had gone online and found out I'd won, with him second and Richard third. That was a pleasant surprise.Medals in hand (this is a race within a race, so we got two medals), I retreated to the car, drove home and prepared to do it again on Sunday. First we start with attitude. The Sunday team time trial had us up against the young guys: 70+ rather than 75+. There were two teams of these guys and all six of them posted times faster than me. The only other team was comprised of beginners. Therefore, we were pretty much assured of third place no matter what our effort.
Speaking of beginners, my team had verteran Dean and Bob. Dean is 79 and Bob had never done a team time trial before. We went over a few basics, but let him learn on the job. Our start time of 8:28 at least let me sleep in. Warm-up went well. We had no incidents, fought the wind on the way out and cruised on the way back. We dropped Dean with a couple of miles to go, and Bob had to lead me in the last mile. Yesterday had caught up with me. We weren't close to second and fourth was a distant fourth.
I have a few weeks before Nationals.
No comments:
Post a Comment