Okay,
so this is my 1st race report to post. I tried something different
today...I did my 1st ever 40K bike Time Trial (Tri and Roadie 40K
Showdown). Let me preface this with a little disclaimer...this was
probably not the smartest thing I have ever attempted being that I am
currently on antibiotics and an inhaler for acute bronchitis, lol.
Well, I showed up to the race site and warmed up for about 20 minutes just pedaling around on the side roads...Unfortunately, my start time wasn't until 58 minutes after the race start...so I'm not sure my little warm up did me much good. To start, they had the option of someone hold your bike seat so you could already be clipped in and take off, but after seeing an elite triathlete that started a few minutes before me nearly eat it, I opted to just do my typical "tri" start. For once, I clipped in on the first attempt. Right before my start it started pouring down rain. Nice. One thing that really scares me is riding on wet roads...I've had one bad crash and I don't really want a repeat. I sucked it up and decided I'd just be reallly careful on the curves and come to an almost complete stop at the halfway turn around. Being that I am sick, I didn't have great expectations for today anyway. I wanted the experience and figured I'd stick to my plan...ride out in Low Zone 4 (for me that is around 190-195 Watts) and then at the turn around start picking it up steadily so that I would finish right around or just over my Lactic Threshold.
On the way out (just over 12 miles) we had a steady headwind (and steady rain). I stuck to my plan though and tried not to go out too hard (always tempting). Luckily, my inhaler seemed to be keeping my cough under control, but I could definitely feel that my lung functioning was down a bit. Ugh. I just kept thinking, at the turn around I'll have tailwind, right?
Well, at the turn around I was feeling pretty strong. I did have to come to a stop...which sucks. It was a tight u-turn on a very wet road. Lost a little time there, but everyone else did too. I was feeling pretty confident. I had already passed several female riders that started ahead of me...and even a couple of men (who started quite a bit ahead). I started to pick up my power steadily...I was moving fast in spite of the rain...but about 3 miles on the way back, a stronger storm moved in and I suddenly lost my coveted tailwind and had head and cross wind the rest of the way back. Not cool. Still kept increasing the power though and with lungs and legs beginning to scream, I saw the final turn ahead. After the turn I only had about a 500 meter sprint to the finish. I was definitely at threshold when I crossed and glad to be done.
I am not sure of the final results yet. Due to the weather and my sickness, I didn't stick around for the awards. I will post as soon as I know. I am quite happy with the data I got off my Garmin though. The averages are a little skewed because I started it about a minute early while I was standing still and I forgot to shut it off for a few minutes after I finished....nonetheless, I finished with an average normalized power of 222, and what should be just over 23 mph speed (shows 22.8 mph but that includes the elapsed time I forgot to hit stop).
Not sure yet, but I think I probably finished among the top several females. We shall see.
All in all, it was a great learning experience and gave me some good training data. I was just happy to keep my wheels down and not require resuscitation at the finish line. :)
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