First TT of the year for me last night. The course was the fastest of the club 10 routes locally, which is still a little on the lumpy side. It was very blustery with strong winds coming off of the sea out towards the return leg of the TT.
I went off first as I had to get to a meeting shortly after. Riding sans computer at the moment and given the choice of aerodynamic position on my TT bike or bonkers lightweight and stiff on my bling road bike, decided to go for the latter, not least because it just needed a quick saddle & post change to be ready to go.
I screwed up the gearing on the start and was pushing such a big gear that I pulled a wheelie for the first few metres. Forcing the legs around, the lungs were soon burning and I noticed ~ 190 bpm on the HRM. Backed off a fraction, but kept forcing the pedals around in a slightly higher gear and lower candence than is truly comfortable. Lost a couple of secs taking the only right turn of the course, as there were supporters in the road and didn't fancy an off. Powered over a slight rise, then pedalled hard to the turn point. Got there with 13 minutes elapsed, about where I had mentally targetted, but fluffed the U-turn at the far end, which was marked with a flag rather than the usual marshall standing in the road to turn around. Also locked up the back wheel (combination of the wrong-way around US brake setup and wariness over a head on car which eventually let me go). Powered back with the wind blustering against me. Must have been a good 2 minutes until I passed my minute man, so 4 in real terms.
A clean turn at the junction with the main road and I was full-on into the wind. Dug deep and tried to keep the intensity at or about red line. I managed to stay on the drops pretty much all the way, staying there for the odd bits of standing needed to maintain pedal speed. Could extrapolate from the time at around 20 mins that I was on for a 27ish, but kept digging deep and powered up the final drag before things flatten off towards the finish. I opted for a seated grind, as the lungs didn't feel up to an out of the saddle explosion.
Once things flattened out, I dropped 2-3 cogs at the back and kicked hard for the line, which as ever took an eternity to arrive. The score on the board was 27:26. My course PB is 26:11, but given the wind and the lack of anaerobic work I've done this year, together with the fact that I spend too much time rowing instead of cycling I was quite pleased with this.
I don't have much by the way of stats, as the bike is sans computer at the moment, but my HRM is one of the fancy type that analyse training effect via the gap between pulses (the proprietary name for this is EPOC analysis). The plot below shows HR on top and training effect below. Level 5 is defined as over-reaching training effect, but I take that with a pinch of salt as I've always ridden 10s flat-out. On the face of it, I went off the boil a little at around 22 minutes, but other than that fairly steady. Have also included the stats, but take the average with a pinch of salt as I was tardy in stopping the clock.
Think I should be on for a new PB this year if I can find a little time for cycling over rowing...
AC
