Two Wheel Blogs

Last weekend was Jeff Yielding's, Tour of Hermann. Jeff not only races, but puts together one helluva race. I've raced in three separate events in Hermann and each one was better than the previous event and last weekend was no exception. Jeff must be loved by the community because his volunteers are there through thick and thin and the entire time you feel like a pro with surroundings.

Seeing as this year is focused on cyclocross, I am opting for TT's early in the season to help raise my ability to race at threshold and to build overall power. I've also chosen to do a handful of crits to help increase leg speed, but last weekend I stuck to competing in just the TT.

It was my first TT race of the year and coming out of a solid 2 months of base, my first real assessment of my training to date. Last year at this time, I wasn't able to run a TT north of 25mph and only did so around my peak last May. My goal coming into Saturday was to run a 23:30, which would have given me an average pace of around 25.5mph. Rolling out of the 'starting house' I decided to see if the legs would respond early. They seemed to just that. I carried a solid tempo to the turnaround passing my 30 second man around the 6:30 mark. My 1 minute man was Dan Young and I never really seemed to close down on him and in the end, he actually gapped me by 40 seconds.

My race was good but I never felt like I was in the power zone, but rather in the survival zone. In the end, I knew it wasn't a stellar day and backed out of the throttle a little climbing the bridge and settled for a time of 23:55. The race confirmed that my base work is making a difference, but it also let me know there's more to come. I think I finished 16th in the Master's 40+ and 77th overall (out of 200 or so.)