Not One of my Better Days

This weekend was the High Point Hill Climb, a 5.5 mile uphill time trial with about 1250 feet of climbing. It had a couple of short downhill sections and it had a couple of steep 20%+ sections.

I knew that I would have some problems with this race on Tuesday. I got out for a decent climbing ride for the first time all year and I just had no power on the climbs. I suspect that the problem is that I've been riding almost entirely on my TT bike since January. I might get an hour or so each week on the road bike, but that's about it. In years past, I've worried about adapting to the TT bike so that I can put out enough power on it. It looks like this year I've managed to reverse that and have now managed to lose power on the road bike since I'm just not used to it.

As far as the race day itself goes, I can't say that I messed anything up. We got there early, I got in a good warmup, and I paced the course well.

Knowing that you can (or at least, should be able to) maintain a higher power on long climbs than you can on a similar flat road, I was aiming for 285 to 290 watts. I was aiming for a time of around 25:30.

I reached the top of the first segment and could barely hold onto 280 watts. I was 20 seconds behind my pacing schedule already. There was a short downhill and then back to the grind.

The top of the second segment, I was barely able to maintain 275 watts and I was now over a minute behind schedule. Oh, this was bad... I settled in around 270 watts, which I was more or less able to maintain the rest of the way.

When I turned into the park, it just got worse. I went up the short, steep climbs at 400 watts, but it was all I had, and I could barely push over the top of them. I had little left to put anything into the downhills.

I hit the finish line totally spent, just a shade over two minutes behind my goal time. I was dreading seeing the results.

Perhaps the biggest damage of the day was to my series results. I finished in 18th place, outside of the points (which are only awarded to 15th place or better). Anthony had a great day and got 6 points, putting him back in the lead by one point. That puts the pressure on for me next week since he gets to start behind me again. If nothing else, we're keeping the drama high for the series!

Nick had a great day, taking a minute off his time last year. I always knew he'd beat me one day, I just didn't expect it to be today.

I also heard that the course record was broken by one of the 1/2/3 riders.

At least someone had a good day :-)



What I did right:
Got there early
Planned out my pacing for the sections of the terrain
Didn't panic when things weren't going well

What could have been better:
Spend more time on the road bike!
I should have rested more. Since I was not expecting great results, I trained right up to Thursday (with an 11 hour week)

The Numbers:
Distance: 5.5 miles
Time: 27:31
Speed: 12.0 mph
Avg Power: 271 watts
Avg Heart Rate:168 bpm