I don't deal well with high humidity. I never have. Heat I'm OK with. Not humidity.
Early this week, I saw that it was going to be hot and humid for this race, so I decided to race in my normal road gear. My time trial helmet has almost no vents and my time trial speed suit does not breathe very well, so I figured I would be better off using my standard road outfit and helmet. I was not racing for the podium today anyway.
I also decided to use my road bike, not my time trial bike. It usually takes me 4 to 6 weeks of riding on the TT bike to get comfortable on it and get my power output close to that of my road bike. While I've been training like a lunatic for the last 8 weeks, it has only minimally been on the TT bike.
I was right to plan for this. At the start, it was 78 degrees with a dew point of 72. Really humid and disgusting.
The race was OK. It is a mostly flat 10.9 mile course with a 3/4 mile climb at one end right before the turnaround. It's got several little climbs for bridges that go over streams, but they are more notable for their bone-jarring offset in the pavement than they are for their vertical climb.
I was really happy with my pacing. I started off hard for the first minute, then settled into my goal power of 250 watts (which was based off a 30-minute test on the trainer two weeks ago). Unfortunately, I forgot to account for the humidity.
About 4 miles out, I could barely breathe. I was inhaling as much as I could, but it felt like nothing was coming in. The humidity had caught up with me. I tried dropping my power, first to 245 and then to 240 and finally to 235. I still could barely breathe and my heart rate was still climbing. Of course, this was right as I hit the hill, so I was working pretty hard to get over that.
Then I hit the turnaround. The crosswinds that were little more than a nuisance on the way out were now really in my face. Nothing like a stiff headwind while trying to make up speed on the descent.
The turn where I almost hit an SUV gave me no problems this year, Of
course, having my road bike (which is far more maneuverable) helped. I
barely touched the brakes diving through that turn.
When I came through the last curve and saw the finish line, I got out of the saddle and gave it all that I had left, which was really not much.
I finished in just a hair over 30 minutes, giving me an average speed of 22 mph and an average power of 240 watts.
For as much as I struggled on the course, it's not that bad.
On the plus side, we got a few good pictures :-)
