Busy day of training today...
The second half of today involved the Providence Bicycle Tuesday Night Time Trial. It was a great time as always. The scheduling gods once again shined on us today and Nancy and I were able to meet up ahead of the TT to get a warmup lap in. We rode a nice easy pace for the whole thing that was the perfect warmup. I am definitely finding that I do better with a nice long warmup so it was the perfect way to get geared up. The funny thing was that at a nice easy pace the TT course doesn't seem all that bad. Even the hills felt pretty easy. Apparently racing them is what makes them so hard. I was also struck by how beautifull that area is. Funnily enough you barely notice the scenery when you fly past it! I saw stuff on that lap I'd never noticed before.
When we got back from our warmup lap quite a crowd had started to show. I think there were around 24 or so riders tonight which was great. I do though wish things were a bit more social. The regulars are all quite chatty but there were a lot of new faces who kept to themselves a bit. Hopefully we can work on loosening everyone up. Also odd tonight was how little anyone said to people as they passed. Usually people are pretty encouraging or at the very least you get an "on your left!" but I got nothing today as the fastest guys passed me. Weird.
But enough about all that nonsense... onto the riding! My ride tonight was very strong. I was really pleased with it. I felt like all the time I've been putting into the bike is paying off every time I ride the TT. I wasn't really sure if I was going to set a new PR tonight for most of the course. I felt really good and strong but I couldn't remember where my average speed was supposed to be at different parts of the course as I hadn't ridden it in a few weeks. So it wasn't until I rounded the final turn and saw my average was still holding in the high 19's that I knew I was going to set a new PR. I crossed the finish line at what I think will be a 42:58 which is almost exactly a minute faster than my previous best 43:59. So I was very pleased with that. I'm getting ever so close to a 20mph average. Which would be awesome! I would be so excited if I can pull that off. Which I really do think I will by the end of the summer if I stay faithfull to my riding which I know I will. All those long rides, intervals, and TTs are all beginning to pay dividends!
After the ride many of us went for a brick run of varying lengths. In the end Nancy and I stuck together for the run and we did 5 miles. We were orginally thinking 7 but a bit of a wardrobe malfunction had us cut it short. Which was good as I was really beat! We did however keep a nice relaxing pace on the run which was good as I just registered for the 5K trail run tomorrow night in Colt State Park. I'm a little bummed its a trail run. I originally thought it was a road race and I was looking forward to seeing what I can do. But I'm still going to try and go all out and see what happens. I haven't raced anything that short in a long time so I need to see what happens and get some speed work in before my first tri.
So next up tomorrow is another swim at GVP in the morning, followed by a two hour recovery ride with Nancy, and then the 5K race at the end of the day. Oy! I'm exhausted just thinking about it all. But it will be fun, and I'm looking forward to it. I'm too tired to figure it out now but I need to decide If I want to do 1/2 mile repeats tomorrow as practice for my sprint, or try and do the mile long continuous swim. Something tells me Nancy is gonna convince me to go for the mile and I'm gonna do it... not sure yet though.
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