Today I competed in my first ever Time Trial. The race was held on the Silver Comet Trail, which I've ridden many many times. It was a new experience to add to my growing list of events I've done. I had a good time, and definitely can't wait for another one so I can apply what I learned today to be better next time.
If you've never done one, here's how the time trial worked: Everyone is assigned a time - we found out yesterday what our start times were. Everyone goes off exactly 30 seconds apart. If someone doesn't show up, they have a "ghost" entrant - and you still go at your assigned time. You get called about 3-4 minutes before your start time to line up. When it's your time, you get up on the top of the ramp, clip in, and the guy holds you and your bike as they count down the last 10 seconds. Then you just go! And ride as hard as you can for 12 miles. HTFU!!
I was thinking the ramp seemed like a great idea, until everyone else started freaking out about it...but it turned out to be no big deal and in my opinion, a good thing - it gives you that little bit of momentum to get going. By the time I got going and looked down at my garmin, my HR was already at 177! Yikes! According to the file, it took 1:14 to get there - ha! didn't seem that far into it at the time. I was thinking, man I gotta get that down, but I really never did. Bottom line, this is a time trial, and it is supposed to be all out, but 177 from the start was not what I expected. I've down the FTP tests on the trainer a few times, and that is a little high to start for me. At one point I actually thought my strap wasn't working - every time I looked down it was still saying 177. Pretty much only went up from there to hit a max of 188.
I'd been warned not to go out too hard, and that the way out had the upwards slope. In retrospect I think I took that a little too much to heart. The turnaround came a lot sooner than I expected, and my data files show how much I stepped it up on the second half. I had hoped to push my power numbers today and I did manage to get new highs for CPT30, 12 and 10min. Final time was 33:41, about 41 seconds slower than I really would have liked, but still the fastest average speed I've posted in a race at 21.3 mph. There are no age categories or masters category for women in the cycling races, quite a bit different than what I am accustomed to. In the final analysis, I ended up 10th in a field of 65. I'm happy landing in the top 15% at the beginning of the season. I'm excited to see what I can do over the rest of the season.
If I am being honest, "not going out too hard" isn't unlike the rest of my training over the last few years. I don't know that I've really pushed myself enough to know what it's like to really have nothing left. There's still some fears around having enough to finish that I need to face. Where's the line between pushing just enough and pushing too hard? Training and C-races are the time to find that out, right? Sure I've always pushed it at the end of a race, but I think too often I haven't pushed enough during the rest of the race to really see my potential. I plan to pursue this over the next couple months and see how much I can take, what I can really tolerate.
Oh and to top off this experience, today was GORGEOUS, and close to 70 degrees when I raced. Can't beat that! Gotta go re-hydrate.
Happy Training!
Kat
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