Chad's spot for various thoughts, musings, poetry, ideas and whatnot

Tuesday, February 24, 2004

Tundra Time Trial

First results of the season are in and while they aren't quite as good as I had hoped for they aren't too bad either. I went up to Powder Springs to ride the first time trial of the year, The Boneshakers Tundra Time Trial. Last year this event only drew about 70 people and was a relatively low key event. This year, over 160 showed up with several teams, including mine, bringing big contingents. I had hoped to ride a really strong first outing and contend for the overall places (yes, I know, I would have had to beat the Cat II guys but it was possible) but it wasn't quite to be. Saturday before the race I hurt my back. This led to having to take massive quantities of ibprofen to get my back to loosen up and also it kept me from eating as much as I should have going into the ride. On top of that, I didn't do my planningright and got to the course late. This only left me with a twenty minute warm-up. Usually I do double that with a 15 minute cool down and hydration. This second problem would prove to be a bigger issue. I got up to the starthouse with about one minute before my start so I just rolled up, shook hands with the officials and had to be ready to go. When I went off I got a reasonable start but quickly realized that my cardiovascular system wasn't ready for the effort I wanted to expend. The whole way out I could only get my heartrate up to about 168 without wanting to puke. Still though I gutted it out and told myself to hang in there. I caught my one and two minute men on the way out and thought that maybe I'd do OK. I had to ease up going through the turnaround and when I sprinted out of it I had a bunch more power. I guess easing up gave my body a chance to reset for a higher level. If only ihad had time for a longer warm-up with a couple of harder intervals. On the way back I felt, getting the ticker up to 178 and having one of the better second half splits of the day. I finished the ten miles in 22:53.6 which was a pretty good time but I knew I could have done better. I managed to finish second in Cat 4, 46 seconds down on the winner. I can't help but think that with a better warm up and fewer blood thinners I would have managed a first place finish. Still though, for a first race and given the problems I have to think it was a great start to the season and gives me a lot of hope that I can contend for the State TT Championship and go to Nationals. As a fitness check, I beat my time from the previous year by nearly two minutes or 10% which is a huge improvement over one year. While some of this improvement comes from riding Slingblade instead of The Steed I can take encouragement from my state of fitness at this point compared to last year.

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