Race Report

My start time was 12:05 so I showed up 2 hours prior to get my race number and get everything setup. I did my prescribed 20min warm up, ate my cliff blocks and headed over to the starting line about 10 minutes prior to my start time. About 2 minutes before my start time the official told us we would be racing 30k, not the 20k I had been told by the promoter just 48hrs earlier, which was fine as I'd been training for 40k anyways. Going out I adjusted my goal wattage down to 235-245w to account for the extra 10k. At about 5 minutes in I passed my 30 second man, and thought to my self am I going too hard? Then about 30 second later I was passed by two riders and I thought, am I going to easy? No, I just need to race my race and stick to the plan.

At the turnaround what had been a quartering headwind out of the WNW at 14mph turned into a quartering tailwind and my speed picked up a bit. Then with 5 miles to go my power started to drop off and I was really struggling. But I gutted it out as best I could and with a mile to go I gave it everything I had, finishing strong.

So what were the numbers?

• First half- 23:50, 235w, 23.2mph, Ave HR 173
• Second Half – 22:14, 225w, 24.8mph, Ave HR 172
• Total 46:04.6 , 230w, 24.0mph, Ave HR 173

All in all it was a great race! In 5 months I increased my speed on the bike from 22mph to 24mph. That's huge! But I cant help feeling I left something on the table. For whatever reason I wasn't able to produce the power on race day that I did in practice. I know I'm stronger than that, I just have to figure out why. And I will.

Here's the good news. In the last five months I've spent 94 hours, 58 minutes, and 15 seconds on my bike training. My Threshold Power has gone up 11.4% and my weight down 5%. During my last flight physical my resting HR was 48 and my blood pressure was 103/48. I have absolutely no doubt that training for this Time Trial has had a tremendous positive effect on me both physically and mentally. And I couldn't be happier.

Now where's my Mountain Bike? I'm training for Leadville!

Train Hard and Smart

Pat