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

Monday, February 18, 2008

Well, it was Tundra Time Trial time again and I went up to see how my body was doing. We had great weather for the race and I was curious to see where my fitness was. I got up there early (which was nice) and did a good warm up. It was weird to dust off all of the time trial gear after not using it since last year's TTT. I feel a lot better this year and I'm looking forward to doing a lot more racing.

I got to the start line and took off with an excellent start. Almost immediately I caught my 30 second, 1 minute, 1:30 and 2 minute rabbits and was feeling good. As I rode though, I noticed that I couldn't get my heart rate up over 162. Now normally I ride at around 170 for my lactate threshold and I was ten beats below that. I was concerned but I also seemed to be riding fast. I told myself that my body was only going to do what it would do and that I had to do the best with what it gave me. Then I went over a bridge on the course and a huge bump flatted my back tire. Race over. As I turned around and rolled back to the start, it occurred to me to ask for a new start time to see if I could get he tube replaced and try again. Fortunately, the official for the day, John, was really generous and gave me a new start.

So I changed the tube, got back to the start line and John slotted me in pretty quickly after that. This time I screwed up my start. Iw as in way too big a gear and it took 10-15 seconds to sort that out. I was rolling but not accelerating up to speed the way I should have. Once again I had the heart rate limit but this time I was chasing some faster guys so I decided to really see if I could push up over the 160 limit my body was imposing. After trying that for about 5 minutes and then throwing up on myself (yes, I puked on the bike) I decided that my body had it right and to ride with what it gave me. I caught two guys by the turnaround and at the turnaround I had a really good turn. As I powered out I realized that something had switched over in my body and I was able to go about 4 bpm harder. As I motored back to the finish line I really felt good and fast. My legs felt like they had a lot of power. At one point though, I lost focus because of thinking about this stuff and then looked down to see my HR down to 157. Refocusing, I was able to push myself back up to my limit.

I finished the course in 22:06 (9 miles) which was a personal record for me but I still finished fifth. The weather made everyone faster and the level of competition for this thing keeps going up. Still, even with finishing off the podium, I felt pretty good about my ride. I'm still getting over a cold and I didn't specifically taper for the event like I've done in years past so I'm pretty good with this as a fitness test. I'll race the Georgia Cup race down in Albany in a couple of weeks as another fitness test/training race and then Perry-Roubaix two weeks after that. The Albany course is pan flat so I don't expect to do much other than hang with the pack but it'll be good practice for that. the Perry course has a couple of really good hills in it so that'll be a better indication. It also has a really good TT course they've used in past years and I'm hoping they'll do the same thing this year so I can use that as a fitness check.

Hopefully, I'll have lost 10 more pounds by the end of March and I'll be at a good race weight by then for what I consider the heart of my season; May-September.

Thanks for Reading.

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