So its a two-fer tuesday... two updates in one day.
After being away in Columbus for a week and once again being away from my bike I wasn't quite sure what to expect out of the time trial tonight. I knew that I'd done a 46:15 in training on the course, but I wasn't sure if I could match that after being away from my bike for a week. In fact when I got on my bike to warmup and do a short ride it sort of felt unnatural. I tried to accelerate down a descent and I felt a little nervous again. Every time I'm away from the bike a little bit I have to build confidence back on it at speed. So after the warmup I wasn't sure what to expect. But I knew my legs felt strong so that was good.
Once again we had a great turnout of somewhere around 10-15 people which was great. Some new faces too. We lined up in the order Sean rattled off and started every thirty seconds. I was around the 6th or 7th to start I think. I'm starting to think that the key to this course is really the first five miles of it. If you can hammer your way up those hills without destroying yourself you can gain some serious time. Whenever I'm slow on that front 5 my overall time suffers even when I do really well on the back side of the course. So I really tried to go hard on those first climbs and not relax at all. I hammered away at all the descents and felt quite comfortable. I think the adrenaline of the race quickly erased any been away from the bike nerves. After the first five miles my average speed was in the 19's. Which I knew was going to make for a good time. Miles 5-8 are fast so I worked extra hard to push the average speed up and got it to 20 going into the first big climb. So I knew I had a cushion. Even if I lost a mph in the average on the climbs I could still set a new PR. So I went hard at the climbs. It really helped that there was another rider out in front of me for a lot of the race. The rider was very quick and I struggled to catch up to them for a good ten miles. Eventually I was able to pass on the big climb but it wasn't easy! I nearly destroyed myself trying to do it. To the point that I was gasping for air and coughing as I passed. I felt bad afterwards as when I was about to ready to pass they said something like "I can hear you back there". I think it may have appeared as if I was coughing to announce my presence. Which would be kind of rude and lame. At the time I was so busy trying not to die or throw up that I didn't say anything, but I did send an email apologizing and letting them know what was up tonight, so hopefully thats all ok.
Anyway... after I creseted the last big hill I just gave it my all and did my best. My average speed was back in the 19's after some of those initial descents so I knew I had a good time as my previous best was something like 18.7mph average. I hammered away as best as I could. Somewhere around there a couple of the faster guys passed me like I was standing still. Impressive. I tried to keep up but it just wasn't going to happen. I love watching athletes like that. Gives me something to aspire to.
So... went super hard on the bike, hammered away all the way to the finish line and then headed into transition. Threw the bike in the car, off with the bike shoes, on with the running shoes, and I even remembered to take my helmet off this time before I took a few steps.
The run was pretty good. I tried to go hard at it. My calves were doing some really odd spasms in the first mile on the hill so I had to dial it back a bit to let them recover and get into run mode. (man that mile long hill that starts the run is brutal!). Once I settled into the run I had a nice pace going and I really pushed hard on the descent back to the start. All in all I did the 5K in something like 23 minutes and change which was a 7'33" average. Which is pretty good considering its a 1.5 miles of uphill, and about .2 miles of flat, and then 1.5 miles of downhill!
So time to check my times... not sure what the official times are yet... but my bike was around 43:50!!! So I knocked just over two minutes off my previous PR! AWESOME! and my run average of 7'33" is better than my previous 8'15" average.
So yeah... had a great day of training! first half mile swim, and a great day at the PB TT Brick!
Next up....
meeting up with some club members tomorrow for another OWS at a new pond I haven't tried yet thats supposed to be a hidden gem. I'm really looking forward to it!
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