What wind?

At the moment I am celebrating any small win on the bike. Today I celebrate a full week of training, I'm getting back on track. My form has been in question since getting back from holiday. Today I got to test to my form in the 20km time trial at Champion Lakes. This is a new course and it's excellent. The first half of the course was a little bit tricky with a few bends and a headwind. However, this meant that the back straight was heaps of fun with a tailwind. I was a little unsure of etiquette with passing etc and lost a little of bit time at the end of one lap when I got caught up behind someone. I have very little experience with time trials so I still have a lot to learn. A couple of strategies though
- keep the heart rate up
- make sure every pedal stroke hurts
- don't slow down

A few problems though - speedo is not wired up just yet and either my HR monitor is broken or I have a new max HR of 225. Again strategies to maintain the pain weren't in place. It's always impressed me when people maintain a constant speed throughout the TT. Today was 4 laps of a 5km course and after half a lap I'd already had a little vomit and was questioning whether I'd cooked myself a little too early. This is where you have to remember that your mind will play tricks on you. Mine especially. I kept going (of course). After the second lap I realised that I was averaging close to 40km/hr (no speedo remember). I got excited but my legs were killing me. The wind had picked up. I felt like I was losing heaps of time. During the fourth lap I got my second wind and really was chasing the 30 minute mark, ambitious I know. I didn't quite get there, but considering I was aiming for 8 minute laps I was really happy with the ride.

Seeing the results is really interesting considering how I felt during each lap. I was certain that I had lost so much more time during the third lap and I felt like I flew in the last lap. But there was only 14s difference between the laps.

Despite the drool and the pain it was heaps of fun, mainly because of the feeling you get when you're finished. ATTA are a really organised club and super friendly, I look forward to supporting their future events.