2012 Church Creek Time Trial
Category 4
Cambridge, MD
Starters: 22
The course was smooth, flat, scenic, but was not well marked with 20 and 30k markers but did have with a wide shoulder available on most of it. Race course was about 12 km to a right turn, then another right at about 25 km mark, then 1 last right turn giving us about 6 km to the finish, There was a 5 km left sign and a 1 km left sign.
Weather was pretty warm. Start of the race was in the low 80s. Sunny with a pretty strong head wind on two of the segments.
The plan was to use my LT from prior to the wreck, around 300 watts. I did not do a good job of checking the wind for the entire course so I broke it down into 10km segments. I set my Garmin for two screens only Power Zones and time. The plan was a sub 1 hour 40k. So I wanted to stay in Zone 4 and hit each of the 10km marks in under 15 minutes. My plan was to make up time in segment 3. Meaning that if I crossed 20k mark (10-20km segment) in 15:20, then I knew I needed to make up 20 seconds on segment 3. I wanted to use 1 and 2 to settle in. 4 is always faster for me because of the adrenaline rush at the end.
I had a good start, and crossed the 10 km at 14:38. I did realize a little too late that I had a tail wind, but I did keep it in Zone 4 so I probably would not have changed that much. First big problem, either did not see or there was not a 20 km marker. (note to self: add distance to the Garmin TT
screen). I estimated where the 20km should have been based on my time being right around 30 minutes. But this destroyed my timing strategy because it was based on distance. I was pacing fairly well, but could tell my power was decreasing to lower LT, higher Tempo. After about 35 minutes I could no longer hold a good aero position. This had more to do about not being
use to the position then bike fit.
Next problem was the lack of 30km marker, so once again having to guestimate my time and had no idea if I was over or under my plan. I figured based on my decreasing power numbers that I was over. Got to a 5 km marker and knew that I was over time but got the bike back up to my zone goal and finished up. Overall time was poor, 1:03:52.
Stats:
Normalized power: 245 watts (55 watts lower than my goal) Average Heart
Rate: 172 Average Cadence: 76
Here are my splits:
10k - NP 261 HR 171
20k - NP 239 HR 173
30k - NP 241 HR 173
40k - NP 228 HR 172
Feedback questions from (Jim Weinstein)
Q. Was your HR in Zone 4 also??
A. I have not really gone out and did a field test on HR. But using Friel's standard and have an actual max HR (203 in a crit), for this race I would have been about 95% in Threshold according to HR.
Q. Also, how far away was your avg power from Norm Power??
A. My average power was 240 and my normalized power was 245. So within 5 watts.
Q. How was your warmup??
A. Did 30 minutes of warm-up plus a 20 minute ride to the start point. The warm-up was okay but should have used the structured one that I normally use.
Q. Did you stay well hydrated?
A. Drank 1 bottle on the bike. Straight water should have added cytomax. BUT my prerace hydration was lacking. Really did not drink my normal days' worth the day before
Q. And what was your VI for the race?
A. 1.02
I tried to keep the cadence up but was not successful, so I just went with what seemed to be more comfortable. I normally have a cadence of upper 90s at LT. Why I could only mash the gears? Not sure.
Overall I am trying to race back to fitness. Very concerned about my average cadence, this is a significant drop in the last 70 days. I thought that power was going to be down, that is just a function of a tragic loss in fitness over the last 70 days.
17th Place over all. Winning time: 54:25. Majority of the group: 10 riders between 59-1:01
