Wednesday Night Time Trial #1
Last night was the first Timetrial in the Big Shark Wednesday night series. Thirty-five of us braved the 25-35mph winds to test ourselves on the flat out-and-back 15km course.
I'll save you the suspense. I managed a 4th place overall finish with an official time of 21:24.14. In case you have any doubts, let me just say it right out. This was an extraordinarily painful 20 minutes. I sort of wish I'd worn a heart rate monitor. I'm sure I would have seen my true maximum heart rate at the finish.
OK let's have some fun. You can tell a couple of important things from my SRM's wattage chart - things I really hadn't expected to see so clearly. Well, except one of them.
First off, I started off way too hard. An equipment malfunction left me without the benefit of seeing my wattage output during the race. Consequently I started out at a way-too-high wattage level. The chart would look even worse had my SRM not dropped a couple of seconds' worth of data right at the start.
Next, and just as obvious, is the big drop in power and speed shortly after the start. That drop was a truck pulling a huge trailer which pulled out in front of me and another rider, causing us both to sit up and hit the brakes hard.
Now for the not-so-obvious stuff. I charted two average speeds for the TT - time going out, and time coming home. A look at how the speed during both legs changes clearly shows the combined impact of a slight change in direction of wind where the road turned slightly.
Finally, Average Power coming home was a bit lower than AP going out. Because of the wind I'd say this actually worked out to be a good strategy. That I actually lucked into a good strategy isn't something I'll celebrate.
In summary, I have a few things to be happy about and a few things to work at for next week's race.
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Looks good
I see a lot of observations there. You must be pleased with the success of this event (most racers are lucky to take home one lesson from an event).
Considering how gusty the wind has been here, your wattage looks quite stable, that is a testament to your form.
Not crashing while going all out on a TT bike you have not ridden extensively, and in trying conditions, and with traffic pulling out on you, is yet another positive take-home.
I recall a similar situation during a training session on Wade Road. I was absolutely *drilling* a 10 minute interval on my TT rig and a truck and trailer pulled out in front of me (spinning gravel from the driveway as he pulled out). I was skidding this way and that, and luckily I stayed upright. It is very hard to recover from a circus act like that...the fact that you were able to finish the race (and finish well) after one, is yet another cause to celebrate your conviction to push a performance from yourself.
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