Today was my last race of the 2011 season: the Ernie Simpson Memorial Time Trial, a 20K (12.4 mile) time trial held near Carlisle, PA.
The course is a little unusual: It's 8.5K to the turnaround, with the first part mostly downhill, then there is an 11.5K part to the finish, most of which is uphill. Don't let me kid you though, the part out had two pretty solid climbs as well. Still, there were some really steep and fast descents.
Above all, I'd say that I paced this time trial better than any other that I've done this year. I started off easily, held back on the first climb, and gradually pushed harder until the turnaround. After the turnaround, I was able to gradually increase power all the way to the finish. With about 2K (1.2 miles) to go, I gave it all that I had left. Of course, that last 2K was all uphill, so it was not all that fast.
I finished the race, rolled back down to the parking lot, got to the car... and it started POURING. I quickly got my bike into the car and got inside to get changed out of my racing uniform. I was lucky. All the folks still on the road got soaked.
A few numbers:
Total distance:20K (12.4 miles)
Total time: 34:06
Avg Speed: 21.9 mph
Max Speed: 40.7 mph
Avg Power: 243 watts (261 normalized)
Avg Heart Rate: 162 bpm
Max Heart Rate: 170 bom
Total climbing: 624 feet
Morning weight: 182.2 pounds
As I wrap up the year, I look forward to some time away from racing and training a little more randomly for a while. I want to get back into losing weight. Looking back, I managed to drop form 190 to 180 pretty quickly, but once racing started, I pretty much hovered from 180 to 183 all summer. If I can drop another 10 pounds, that will help a lot with next season.
My next few posts will take a look back at this year and what I'm thinking about for next year (and probably something about my honeymoon in there!)
