Monday, May 21, 2012

Superior-Morgul Race Weekend – Time Trial


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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