Charity Time Trial

May 6, 2007
Burnsville, Minnesota

7.2 miles or so

Pre Race
I came into this race a little less than perfect. The training was okay but I'd been sick, just going on antibiotics in the days leading into the race for a sinus infection. By Sunday morning I was feeling better but far from perfect.

Any report on this day will start and end with the weather, in particular the wind. The Twin Cities was under a high wind advisory for the whole day and there were gusts exceeding 50mph during the day. Race time was not a whole lot better. The course itself is somewhat isolated and low, it runs close to a river, but nonetheless it was still really windy. In a few spots, I almost got blown over with gusts that had to be well over 40mph.

I got to the race site plenty early, hung around and chatted with some friends and clients. Warm up was uneventful and I enjoyed chatting with one of my clients Nate. I made sure to get in a few periods of reasonably high wattage to get the body ready for the fun to come.

Race
Time trials are all about pacing. As the shortest time trial I've ridden, I was not sure exactly how hard to go earlier. Time trials are often lost in the first quarter of the race as people go out too fast and use far more energy than they initially realize only to suffer a marked slowdown at the end. Knowing this, I hoped to start fairly conservatively but not too slowly as the whole race wouldn't last more than 20 minutes, likely under 18 minutes even with the strong winds.

I lined up and felt calm. I am not sure my head was totally into the race as I was really pretty focused on a few of the clients who were racing as well. It all got a lot more real, when my holder grabbed my seat. There is something both exhilarating and frightening to being held ready to start a time trial with your head encased in an aero helmet. With a 10 count, and then the countdown from 5 seconds I was off. It was cool to hear someone yell my name as I took off. I looked down to see the power meter reading a very high number. This is normal in the first seconds as the demands of getting the bike up to speed are pretty significant. This isn't where riders typically mess up, it is after the first 30 seconds through the first 5 minutes that things can go wrong. Looking at my power file, I rode in the ways that would not be optimal. I'll get into that a bit more in a minute.

After the initial push, I tried to settle into a high effort level with good aero position and calmness. Remaining calm was crucial as the course itself was on a rough road and the cross wind gusts really made for a challenge. I tried and did a pretty good job of staying aero and dealing with the gusts. After about 8 minutes I was approaching the turnaround. I was surprised to see a couple of strong guys who started a minute and a minute and a half in front of me. They looked close and I thought I might have a chance to pick them off on the way home. Just before the turn, I saw one of my clients coming from behind me. We had talked before the start and planned for me to go 2 riders ahead of him so as to make me a carrot for him. The plan included me to watch as he rode by for any form issues as he rode by. I looked back as I slowed for the turn and saw him back there, pretty close.

I did a sloppy turn around, the road was narrow and with the wind I got nervous and rode onto the dirt for a second. I recovered quickly and was moving okay until I got blasted by a huge wind. It was here that I had seen my minute man, and the 1.5 minute man. They had been doing good rides, I realized, and they looked slow here not because they were going slow but because the wind was huge. I struggled on and soon my client rode by me. I yelled at him to keep going and I was happy to see that he looked good. I tried to stay close. It worked reasonably well but he put a good bit of ground in front of me pretty fast. I was happy to get close to the finish but wished I had known exactly where it was located as that would have helped me a tad as I finished.

After enduring one more huge wind gust, which included a spray of gravel, I was happy to be crossing the line. I caught up to my client who had just finished. He was reasonably happy and I was glad to be done.

Post Race
I ended up fifth in the Category 4/5 field, which was not too bad really. My time of 17:44 was okay given wind, but I'm less than thrilled with my execution.

Power Anaysis
Here is where I can really see the error of my ways. Early season races are a great chance to make some mistakes and learn from them. I certainly made some pacing mistakes and plan to make sure to avoid that the next time. Basically, I rode a classic start too fast and fade time trial. All of the highest wattages for the race were the first minutes. Whether we're talking about peak 1 minute, 2 minute, 5 minute, whatever, it was the first part of the ride. The best way to see the fade is to look at the average watts for the first half versus the second half of the ride. First half, average watts were 295, norm power was 297. The second half of the course was 283 average and norm power. That is about a 4 percent fade. Not much to say aside from I won't pace like that again if I can help it. If you'd like to take a look at the power file, it can be found here.

Have fun and see you at the races!