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What Richard saw:
Category: 4/5
Result: Top ten
A vineyard is a very civilised place for a race HQ. During the seemingly
interminable wait for the official times for the Cat. 4/5 group (caused
by a late starter), I tasted a little wine and picked up a couple of
bottles of an interesting semi-sweet white. I need to apologise to
Pritpal - race day entries were permitted but it would have been a ride
for a time only.
I made it to Lodi safely. On the way there I noticed what looked like a
helicopter landing on 580 as I was driving through Livermore. Odd,
thought I. Turns out it was a medivac helicopter responding to a serious
crash on the west-bound carriageway. The carriageway was shut by the
police about a mile before the accident. I think everyone on the
east-bound side was driving with more care after seeing that.
I got to the HQ in plenty of time, registered, changed into my skinsuit
and had a good warm-up on the trainer. I decided that I was not going to
have a computer on my bike - rather, I strapped my heart rate monitor in
its place. When I am climbing well, my threshold seems to be around 183
bpm, but I knew that I wouldn't be able to ride at that level today.
Instead, I chose my target HR as 175 bpm with the audible alarms set to
sound below 170 and above 180 bpm. My warm-up consisted of a lot of
spinning, eating a banana and an effort which raised my HR to 175 bpm
for a couple of minutes. My final preparation was swapping out the
trainer wheel for the race wheel and tweaking the gears so they shifted
properly.
On to the start and there is Casey Kerrigan doing the honours with the
aid of an incredibly smart clock, just like the ones you see on the TT
stages of the Pro races. Having a visible clock like this means that you
can see the official time and ensure that you are on time for your
start. No excuses for missing your start now!
For some reason, I had been given the scratch position in the 4/5 group.
In the UK the favourite or defending TT champion typically has this
position. Am I worthy?, I was asking myself. At the start/finish, I met
up with Tim and Gaelan. Gaelan had ridden the 10 mile course in 30
minutes flat, which is a great time for a first 10 mile TT.
The course itself was straight out and back, with subtle kinks in the
road and only 3 real bends near the turn on the 20 mile course. The wind
was gradually getting stronger and was a tail out and in your face the
way back, save for a short section of crosswind between two of the turns.
At the start, I started my stopwatch with 20 seconds to go so I will
have an idea of my time. Some deep breathing accompanied the count-down,
and I am off, getting my foot into the pedal on the second attempt and
getting up to speed reasonably quickly. However, for some reason, my HR
was not eager to get to where I wanted it. It sat in the 160's for quite
a while and I thought that I wasn't going to be able to get it over the
170 barrier. Finally, it co-operated and I set about trying to find a
nice rhythm to keep me at 175 bpm.
At about a quarter distance, I saw that I was gaining on a rider, and I
fervently hoped that it was my minute-man. Wasn't to be - it was my
4-minute-man that I passed at third-distance. By this stage, I was
trying to gauge how close I was to the turn by looking at the earlier
starters heading the other direction, but given the length of the course
everyone was so jumbled up that I couldn't really tell.
After the turn, which is on a slight downhill, which means that after
turning you start climbing and riding into the wind (ouch!), I see that
I am in striking distance of another rider - is that my minute or
two-minute man? Don't know yet, and I have the added problem of trying
to keep my HR above 170 into the headwind which I found really hard.
Who's this I am catching? My 9-minute-man!, going really slowly.
The short crosswind section was a nice change, but still, my HR didn't
want to go above 170, regardless of the gear I was attempting to turn. I
seemed to get on marginally better in a higher gear, so I kept trying to
turn it. Still the rider in front of me is clearly my 2-minute-man.
Where is my minute-man? He must be going at least as quickly as me.
Over the course of the return leg, I slowly dragged myself up to my
2-minute-man. At about 3/4 distance, I found some reserves to lift the
pace for about a minute to bring him into definite-catching range. This
I did with about 2 miles to go, struggling all the while to keep my HR
up near 175.
There was nothing left for a finishing sprint, I just tried to keep the
pedals turning, and finished with a time I estimated to be 50:16. Of
course, once you stop and recover, you always start second-guessing
yourself about how much quicker you could have gone. Maybe I could have
gone under 50 minutes if only I had worked harder? Yes, and I thought I
was going to die out on the course.
I rolled back to the start, got changed and was interested to see that
my unofficial time would be good enough for about 10th in the 1/2/3
group. Hmmmm, maybe I have a decent place in the 4/5?
After the long wait, the results were finally posted and my official
time is 50m 16.8s and is sixth in the 4/5 group. I was 20 seconds behind
4th and 1:20 behind 3rd, my minute-man got second and I was roughly 2
minutes behind first. If you had offered me 6th place prior to the race,
I would have taken it, so overall, I am pleased with my result. Time
trials are hard, but when you ride them well, despite not being at 100%,
they are satisfying events.
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