It's that time of year again: time to punish myself to help raise money for our JMI group.
The Tour de Breakaway is a 3-day event held on CompuTrainers at Breakaway Bikes. The first day is a 10K time trial, the second day a 60K rolling hills day and the third day a major climbing day. I also wrote about it last year:
Stage 1: TT
Stage 2: That's More Like It
Stage 3: Hanging on for Dear Life
I really had no idea what to expect tonight. I have been training, but more focused on the type of surges and sprints that happen in a crit, not on the type of long endurance for a time trial. Luckily, this was a pretty short time trial. Based on the numbers I've been seeing in training, I expected to hold about 270 watts. My weight was up a little (largely from eating salty snacks all week in strategy meetings), so I that was going to hurt me a little on the climbing portions of the time trial.
The one thing that should have sounded an alarm for me was how warm it was in the room when we got there. I never deal well with warm temperatures when I'm riding.
The first 4 miles or so, I was doing really well. I felt like I was pacing well, my power was holding sky high (about 300 watts average) and it felt like I was barely pedaling.
Then at about 4.5 miles, I started to not be able to breathe so well. It felt like every lung-full of air was super hot. I was sweating like crazy but not getting any cooler. When the oscillating fan blew on me, it felt like the heat was on. My power started to drop.
So, I collected myself and didn't panic. I dropped my power to about 230 watts (not really intentionally, but that's what I could hold onto) for about a mile. Once I reached the final climb, I jumped out of the saddle and gunned it as hard as I could.
I finished with a time of 16:40 and averaged 282 watts. My average heart rate was a whopping 173 beats per minute.
That was enough for 12th place (against a crowd of largely Cat 1,2, and 3 riders). I felt miserable but I was really happy with the results.
Next up, the long road day!
