Sth Pacific RR Champs ITT

Day 2 Afternoon:

15km Individual Time Trial. Out and back course – undulating, descent out, climb back, slight crosswinds throughout.

7.5km out 7.5km back

What’s to say about a time trial? You don’t want to start and you just want it to end. In the middle it’s a battle – you against the wind – mind over muscle. The road’s pretty dead and the wind is interesting… omnipresent it seems. The downhill start means speed is topping 50kph so in any case there’s going to be wind in your face. I’ve attached the aero bars to the road bike – pretty ugly look but it does allow some aerodynamic positioning. While control may not be optimal at least you can tuck the head in low and enclose yourself in that little cocoon of personal space.

Last year I went out too hard and blew on the return so this year I’m gradually building and pushing a slightly longer gear. For me that’s dangerous since power is not my strong point and I’ll surely fatigue. But I seem to have found a gear that’s working and there’s a consistency that feels right. There’s a temptation to shift up at each rise in the road but any shifting is going to mean hand off the aeros to the shifter so I go deeper instead.

By the turn I just want it over. I’ve seen the riders ahead of me steaming home. Frank Donnelly seems to have made up a lot on his minute man, or is that men? He’s certainly well over a minute up on me as I can’t see him even on the longest stretch of road on the home leg. I can no longer sustain that long gear and have to shift up and cop the reduced speed. 40kph is now a distant memory and it’s all in the 30s. I decide not to look any more – it’s not helping.

What to say? Where is that bend that leads me to the line? I have to go for another easier gear – less speed. Damn! I remind myself that there’s a gradient so of course it’s slower and focus on staying tucked down, trying to find that illusive rhythm. I push over one more bump and start to swing around that curve to see the road rising up ahead. The last stretch is around a 4% rise but the finish is a perfect lure. It’s now time to push that HR totally into the red zone. The final 100m I slip off the aeros and onto the drops – out of the saddle it’s all ouch! I hit the finish with an exhausted sigh with a face plastered with snot and sweat. Not a pretty sight but the elation is palpable. It’s over. I did it – again.

At the finish line

The results sheet is posted: 4th place – again! I’m a minute off 3rd so at least that’s good – 5 seconds would have been hard to take, not that I felt I could have done any more out there. Once the pain has subsided though I always imagine that there was something I could have done to go that bit faster. Certainly not a minute faster though so I’m satisfied with that time:

1st Frank Donnelly 21:13:56
2nd Marcus Coppock. 23:03
3rd Gifford Crosthwaite 23:10:90
4th Nigel Frayne 24:11:02

As a nice bonus I discover that, while there’s no medal, they do pay down to 4th so I take something home.

The Garmin site link:

http://connect.garmin.com/player/80895803

The pretty graphs that turn human suffering into cool blue curves:

The pictures tell some of the story...

Interesting to compare with last year’s effort – a minute quicker but less wind this year – I also note the lower ave CAD and HR:

Time:    25:10 (official)
Distance:    15.1km
Ave Spd:    36.1kph
Max Spd:    52.8kph
Ave CAD:    86
Max CAD:    108
Ave HR:    177
Max HR:    188