Taking A Bit More T Out Of The TT

It's been a slow couple weeks since the last update..

Let's see:

Sun, Jul 25th - Windsor Park Crit

My favourite race course, but i was having an off day... Stuck with the pack for 10mins, but then got dropped...the surging was killing me. And we were averaging over 44kph. Hit over 800w nearly 30 times in that period. Gah.

Long story short, fell off, rode solo, caught another shelled rider, worked together, pack came around..lasted 6mins, again, jam after jam... The guys at the front were keeping up a punishing pace, and it was impossible for me to move further up in the pack at that point... Solo'd again, and then found Peter Lawless, we chased for a while, then the pack came back, but i couldn't even stick at that point, rode solo for the rest of the race. Luckily not a 'big' event, so i finished DFL, which i'll gladly take over DNF! 50mins of pain tho.

Kinda sucks, as i should have been in there...the lack of having a track is really cutting into my high-end. =(

The following week i took off completely, chilled, no riding except for some commuting. A bit of a 'reset' as i start my build for CX.

Sat, Jul 31st - OBB Ride

Plan was to take it easy. Didn't. First day back on the bike after 6 days off..silly me. Hung with the (big!) pack until Brentwood, and i was really starting to feel like crap, so dropped off. A small group of us rode tempo back into town, it was what i needed at that point.

 Entire workout (196 watts):
    Duration:      2:55:27
    Work:          2038 kJ
    TSS:           233 (intensity factor 0.899)
    Norm Power:    242
    VI:            1.23
    Distance:      95.702 km
                     Min    Max    Avg
    Power:           0    974    196     watts
    Heart Rate:      90    190    161     bpm
    Cadence:         20    128    95     rpm
    Speed:           0    67.2    33.0     kph

A rude return...haha..

Sun, Aug 1st - 9:15am MTB Ride

Thought i'd hook up with this group, hoping they were going for an easier ride...and hadn't ridden the MTB for a while.

Fail.

Hammered out to Partridge Hills (up by Durrance Lake), the road aspect was fine as it was relatively steady, but i didn't really want to hammer in the trails....it seems these guys go at race pace once they're off-road! We enter in a spot i've never been - some sweet singletrack in there! (Check the map, you can go in and ride, there's only one trail.) My tech. skills were sucking, plus it's something i'm bad at: the loose dirt and crumbling wood/'sawdust'...so they were gone pretty quick. There was a hike-a-bike portion up to another road, and i just told them to go ahead. I didn't want to slow them down, and wasn't feeling like a hammerfest.

So i rode back the way i'd come, and really enjoyed the trail in there. Got back to the road, and headed further up to the 'back' entrance to Hartland, and climbed up the back side of the Regional Trail. Bombed down Who's Yer Daddy, went up Inventive, across to the far side of Rollie Ridge, and then cut back down, Skull Trail, over to Shock Treatment and then out Executive, and the road home.

Started rather unpleasant, but ended well-enough. =)

Here's the Garmin data:



Yip - nearly 750m of climbing...haha.. I guess there's a 'mountain' in mountain biking for a reason. ;)

Tue - OA TT

Yay - some more success!

Managed to shave ANOTHER 10 seconds off my previous times!! Down to about 21:18.

A few more peeps out this time, 7 in total. We timed the start pretty well, most of us finished in the same minute..haha..

Wattage much more accurate this time around, let's take a boo - weather conditions were great, btw, ~21C and a slight breeze (~3kph) that seemed mainly in my face on section #2:

Effort #5, Aug 3rd

Section:  #1    #2    #3    TOT

Time:     7:42  8:31  5:08  21:18

Watts:    295w  278w  280w  285w

HR:       179   190   190   186

RPM:      100   102   103   102

Spd:      38.0  38.7  40.3  38.8

This reflects how i felt after the 2nd corner - really suffered around that portion... HR was quite high, and kept my cadence up too. Here's the others for comparison:

Effort #1, Apr 20th

Section:  #1    #2    #3    TOT

Time:     8:30  9:10  4:56  22:36

Watts:    305w  267w  274w  283w

HR:       174   182   184   180

RPM:      97    97    99    97

Spd:      34.4  36.4  41.5  36.8

Effort #2, May 4th

Section:  #1    #2    #3    TOT

Time:     8:24  9:01  5:08  22:32

Watts:    291w  278w  286w  285w

HR:       174   184   186   181

RPM:      99    99    102   100

Spd:      34.7  36.7  40.7  36.8

Effort #3, May 18th

Section:  #1    #2    #3    TOT

Time:     8:36  8:57  4:56  22:28

Watts:    281w  270w  268w  274w

Est.Wts:  292w  281w  279w  286w

HR:       175   185   187   182

RPM:      101   102   103   102

Spd:      33.8  37.1  42.1  36.9

Effort #4, June 20th (watts kinda wacky)

Section:  #1    #2    #3    TOT

Time:     8:12  8:49  4:53  21:55

Watts:    281w  260w  265w  269w

HR:       179   187   188   184

RPM:      99    103   107   103

Spd:      35.5  37.5  42.0  36.9

Wattage was a wee bit lower, although my NP was actually a bit higher, at 292w, and keep in mind that i coasted for a fair bit down a few of the hills....so those zeros bring it down quite a bit!

I crushed the first two portions, i had to double-check the first one! But i suffered for the effort at the end..

Gonna keep the TT's rolling each Tuesday until the end of August, check out http://bit.ly/oavic-tt for more details (and full results) if you'd like to join us!

Will likely take tomorrow off, and on Thu head up to the Ob for a return to the Over/Under intervals....yip!


Later taters!

=============

Dave's Latest Twitter Updates

follow me on Twitter

=============