I say a little bit of running, it ended up being a bit more than my coach had planned and suggested, running a half marathon 5 days before what should be a target race is probably not the best idea. Thing is with time ticking down to my first iron distance triathlon I've got to take every chance possible to get my running fitness where it needs to be. I did do it at a fairly easy pace so didn't seem to suffer too much from doing it, or so I thought at the time. It was quite nice running at 5am with just the sound of the birds chirping away.
The little bike training session on Friday highlighted that perhaps I had hurt the legs a little bit more than I thought, as what should have been an easyish session felt quite hard, no doubt a 15 hour day driving back from Glasgow the day before didn't help either.
Anyhow what was done was done, all I could hope that with a bit of recovery on Saturday my legs would be in a suitable shape for Sunday, it was quite nice having a lateish start time on Sunday as it did mean not having to get up at 4am to drive to Stafford. Once at the HQ I setup the turbo so I could try and do a controlled warm up, this ended up feeling like hard work as well, things were not looking too great it must be said.
Now in my first TT Series race I won it quite comfortably, this was going to be a different matter completely and I didn't really need to be feeling substandard. I had the formidable Julian Ramsbottom and local fast guy Scott Westwood in this event, I really needed to be firing on all cylinders. Once I started riding for the start I felt much happier than I did on the turbo, perhaps it was just being on the turbo that felt horrible.
This was one of the hillier TT Series races I had done, and although hilly I was still hoping to do the 22 miles in under 50 mins (I thought this was the minimum needed really to stand any chance of winning). I got off to a good start and was happy with the power I was putting out, perhaps my legs were better than I thought. The first 5 miles of so were into a bit of a headwind, though the road here was pretty fast and not too hilly. We turned off onto a smaller road and luckily with this being the hilliest part we had a bit of a tailwind, this always makes the hills a little bit more pleasant. It wasn't long before my visor started misting up, a bit surprising really as it has been pretty good once the day has warmed up. Perhaps where it had rained earlier in the day it was still a bit humid, or perhaps I was breathing heavier.
Picture Courtesy of Brian Hall
Although this distracted me, I don't think I lost much time, it was just harder to see any problems with the road ahead, luckily there were only a few potholes which had been marked out by the organisor (I am really glad when they go that little extra mile). One unique feature is having to cross a reservoir, this is a bit different, and luckily with the tailwind it wasn't the horror it could have been with a crosswind. At this point I could feel the effort in my legs, but I could also see my 2 min man, this as always gives you that little extra push. I caught him around the 12 mile mark, but now I really was hurting but I had to push on as you never want to get repassed. The last few miles were fairly fast with the tailwind even though it was slightly uphill, but I also knew the last 8 miles or so were going to be in a headwind and the road wasn't flat.
On turning into this road, the strength of the wind surprised me a little, it was gusty and even the smallest of hills here seemed steeper than they actually were, tired legs weren't helping either. Power was still good however and although I couldn't quite manage much above threshold on the hills, I at least took time to recover on the downhill bits. With the headwind though these were not as enjoyable as they should have been, you still needed to pedal to keep the speed up - damn headwinds. I was a bit surprised of the last few miles, what looked like downhill on elevation maps seemed to be a real struggle and it still took a very big final push to keep any decent speed up. It seemed like forever crossing the finish line, but I did so in under 50 mins - just. My time of 49:52 seemed half decent and I felt I had given all I had on the day.
On getting back to the HQ I found out that the first 3 were really close, 11 secs covered us, I knew it was going to be close, but I didn't expect it to be that close. I lost out to local lad Scott Westwood, no doubt his greater course knowledge paying dividends here, and I had managed to beat Julian by 4 secs, talk about cutting it fine. I wasn't too disappointed to lose to Scott, he isn't doing the full series, but Julian is, so the main target was to be in front of Julian, though to be honest I wish it hadn't been as close as it was.
All in all the race went as well as could be expected, power was in the right ballpark, though I was never truly comfortable and I think my legs were still not feeling as good as they could have been. Power in reality should have been higher for the duration, but you can only do what you can on the day. Ruth has done great things with my training plan, and with me trying to extend myself in every training session, it really is testament to her that I can still pull these performances out without the cycling only specific training. Also must say a big thanks to Zipp Wheels, Tacx, SRAM, Quarq, and Torq Fitness for there continued support.
Next race is round 3 of the RTTC TT Series, the iconic Buxton Mountain TT, now this is a hilly event, again I need to be on top form and a little bit lighter than I was last weekend. Eating has gone really well and just a little bit lighter, going to need to be for this event and the Bastion coming up, just got to make sure when I go away with work I don't indulge too much.
RTTC TT Series Round 2 Results
RTTC TT Series Round 2 Report
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