Perfect Second

Today is one of those days when everything went right. I am happy with my training the last few weeks. I'm well rested, well fed, and my allergies are no longer acting up. I got in a good recon of the course, a good pacing plan, a good night's sleep, and a good warmup.

As I usually do for longer courses, I divided the course into quarters. The first quarter was all flat or uphill, including a very sharp turn. The middle two quarters were rolling hills, some of them pretty steep. The last quarter had a steep descent into a sharp turn, a steep climb right after the turn, and then flat or downhill for a couple miles (with a huge crater to avoid in the road) before the final climb to the finish. I hit the finish line thinking I'd done everything right and might have won... then I realized that Anthony was just behind me at the finish. He started 30 seconds behind me.

Some days the competition is just better.

The funny thing is, I'm not upset. You've all seen my "second per mile rule." If the difference between two riders is a second or more per mile, then the difference was probably fitness, not just some mistake on the course. Over an 11.2 mile course, Anthony beat me by 2.5 seconds per mile today.

It bugged me a lot more last time when he beat me by 4 seconds over 9.5 miles.

I hit my speed and power targets. It wasn't enough to win today but I'm really proud of the result.

I get two more weeks of training before my next race: the Philly TT. It's one of my favorite events and this one is not part of the series, so it will be against a totally different set of competitors.

What I did right:
Planning and execution

What could have been better:
Nothing that I could fix today

The Numbers:
Distance: 11.2 miles
Time: 27:15
Speed: 24.7 mph
Avg Power: 263 watts (283 normalized)
Avg Heart Rate: 165 bpm