So I've had a few firsts on my new bike: my first century ride in Palm Springs, Rock Store, and now a time trial. I set my mind on this just a few weeks ago and decided to use this as a measurement of my training. My goal was to complete the 20K course in one hour or less since last month's winner in my category (women's public) finished in 47 minutes.
In order to do this I read everything about time trail prep and a lot of blogs of folks who have done this course in the past. I spent the past 3 weeks doing lots of short (20-30 mile rides) with fast spurts (flat intervals) and hill intervals (ouch).
Apparently getting "the burn" helps the leg muscles grow provided you give them adequate recovery and nutrition.
I set out this past Tuesday to ride the course as a practice and aside from it being a remote location and feeling a bit alone, I finished in 53 minutes with a huge headwind. Not so bad. I reset my goal to beat that and decided I would be happy with any time 46-52 minutes.
This morning I woke up at 6am to get ready. Robb made me pancakes (my fuel favorite) with bananas and walnuts. He's the man...not to mention how awesome he is again, but he was my coach for the day. He filled my tires with air, put my bike together, kept me going during the warm up and rehydrated me after the ride. And he took these photos --lots of others too!
We arrived at 8am at the course and met Uncle Tren-race producer and all around nice guy:) I was scheduled to be on the line at 9 am which ended up being 9:19 but off I went. I've never been "pushed off" before so that took some trust, but it was great. I was happy to be out early as you could feel the wind really kicking up. I'd read not to go out to fast, too early, so I had to hold back a bit even though my mind was saying, "You're so slow, just bust your ass!" At mile 3 I was warmed up and hitting the grove in the big ring. I loved the feeling of speed and the open road. Sure guys passed me on time trial bikes, but it wasn't a race against them, only against the clock, so I motored on.
The turnaround came earlier than I had expected-yipee and I was off on the way back. I kicked everything I had in. Last hill was short but I was nearly spent. I took every hill up out of the saddle, but this one almost did me in. Like a horse to the barn I saw the end a half mile up the road, pushed into the biggest ring, checked my watch and know I knew I would make my goal.
Hit the line...well wasn't quite sure where the finish was, so I might have cheered a bit early! I had done it--I wasn't sure how well, but I new it would be better than 53...in fact it was 44:56, a fifth place with the winner in my category beating me by 5 minutes. Awesome feeling.
http://www.uncletren.com/results/04-08-20k.htm link to the results
Now I'm tired, but no major "bonk" or pain. All in all the training worked....what to shoot for next? Maybe I should finish that novel I've been working on:)
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