This past weekend was the pinnacle of my planned spring road
race campaign, the Superior-Morgul Omnium. Three days of road racing near my house on
roads I am very familiar with. Friday
evening was a roughly 6.5 mile time trial (TT – race against the clock),
Saturday was a 45 minute criterium and Sunday was a 49 mile road race over the
famed Morgul-Bismark loop. If you have a
look at the Strava widget on the right side of the blog you can see the maps
and all the details on each of these races.
Since these races were a goal of mine, I had specifically
targeted my training in an effort to be at my best. Leading up to these races I tapered off my training
to rest up for the races ensuring I would survive the weekend and be as fast as
possible. For me, resting is always
harder than just riding, it gives you time to think about all the things you
could have done differently and doubt yourself.
I tried to push that all out of my mind because right before the race it’s
too late; doing anything different is only going to cause more harm than good. The week before the races I backed off the
number of intervals and took a few days off the bike the week before the
race. I got in some short openers on
Wednesday and Thursday to make sure the body was ready for the TT Friday
evening.
I arrived at the Time Trial race early to get my number and
check out how the TT was being run and ensure I got in a good warm up. I only do a TT about once a year so I wanted
to refresh my memory on these things. I
don’t have a time trial bike, or deep dish carbon aero wheels, or a pointy
helmet, or clip on aero bars; I was going to do the time trial retro, meaning
no extra aerodynamic enhancements other than what you find on a standard everyday
road bike. I knew it would be a
disadvantage and I’d lose time but my legs were going to have to do the work.
My concern for the race was pacing, there are too pretty big
hills (the wall and so called hump 2) connected by a flat section and I knew if
I went too hard on the hills I’d lose even more time on the flats as I fought
to recover. So I decided to using my heavier,
32 spoke Powertap wheel to help gauge my effort. My plan was to be a little under my threshold
power or coasting on the descents, at or near threshold on the flats and above
on the steep part of the climbs.
I got in a good warmup and went down to the start
house. We got to start out of the official
US Pro Challenge Time Trial start house, which was kind of cool. I stuck to the plan during the race and the
legs felt pretty good, I set a new personal record going up the Wall in 5:49 as
well as the second hump in 3:17. In the
end I finished the TT in 18:42, finishing in 18th of 28. At first I was a little disappointed but
after looking through the results most people were within +/- 20 seconds and I
set two personal records up those hills, what more could I ask for? I set out to recover and get ready for the
Criterium that was to be held about 12 hours after my TT. During cyclocross season my second race of
the weekend was typically my best; hopefully this weekend would be same.
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