It's not often that you exceed expectations, or at least for me. I tend to set rather impossible goals for myself and often that leaves me coming up short. I suppose sometimes it results in great things. Wednesday night I did my first race and time trial of the year in 24:40. That was a 25.54 mph average and good enough to place 5th in the Cat 4's. I knew that I would finish in less than 30 minutes and hoped to be closer to 25 minutes but I didn't really dream I could crack the top 5 and go under 25 minutes. I have put in next to zero speedwork this winter and only have about 100 miles acclimating to the time trial bike, all in 5 days time.
The race and evening was great fun. Marni and I got there with plenty of time and I ran through my full 55 minute warm up. Marni was great helping me prepare and taking care of my extra clothes, water and equipment so I didn't have to worry about it. I didn't feel great as it's week 3 of the current build phase but I didn't feel terrible either. Erik, Michelle, Scott, Dan, Derrick, Jim and other friends were there which made it a lot of fun. My start was terrible but in retrospect I think that's my fault. I didn't get to the line early enough and was really rushed trying to get the holder to hold me, clear my computer and get clipped in (which I didn't). That's worth a few seconds in the future. During the race I felt pretty good and passed a lot of people. I think I can go a little harder in the opening few miles next time. All my preriding of the course paid off though as I didn't look at anything other than my speed on the computer and my watch at the turn around and finish. I had the course memorized really well.
This coming Wednesday is smack in the middle of a rest week so I'm really excited to race again. I'm going to tweek a few things on my position over the weekend and if the weather is as beautiful as this week I'm going to give the 23 minute barrier a run for it's money. For now it's one more weekend of hard training but this time I'll be satisfied knowing that all the hours and miles I've put in over the past 6 months have started to pay off.
It's not often that you exceed expectations, or at least for me. I tend to set rather impossible goals for myself and often that leaves me coming up short. I suppose sometimes it results in great things. Wednesday night I did my first race and time trial of the year in 24:40. That was a 25.54 mph average and good enough to place 5th in the Cat 4's. I knew that I would finish in less than 30 minutes and hoped to be closer to 25 minutes but I didn't really dream I could crack the top 5 and go under 25 minutes. I have put in next to zero speedwork this winter and only have about 100 miles acclimating to the time trial bike, all in 5 days time.
The race and evening was great fun. Marni and I got there with plenty of time and I ran through my full 55 minute warm up. Marni was great helping me prepare and taking care of my extra clothes, water and equipment so I didn't have to worry about it. I didn't feel great as it's week 3 of the current build phase but I didn't feel terrible either. Erik, Michelle, Scott, Dan, Derrick, Jim and other friends were there which made it a lot of fun. My start was terrible but in retrospect I think that's my fault. I didn't get to the line early enough and was really rushed trying to get the holder to hold me, clear my computer and get clipped in (which I didn't). That's worth a few seconds in the future. During the race I felt pretty good and passed a lot of people. I think I can go a little harder in the opening few miles next time. All my preriding of the course paid off though as I didn't look at anything other than my speed on the computer and my watch at the turn around and finish. I had the course memorized really well.
This coming Wednesday is smack in the middle of a rest week so I'm really excited to race again. I'm going to tweek a few things on my position over the weekend and if the weather is as beautiful as this week I'm going to give the 23 minute barrier a run for it's money. For now it's one more weekend of hard training but this time I'll be satisfied knowing that all the hours and miles I've put in over the past 6 months have started to pay off.
6 comments:
YAY CHRIS!!!!! You did awesome! Who did you hire to be your photographer?
My cute wife was the cool photographer :)
Congratulations Chris!
You did good.
MOM
Golly you 2 are sappy =)
Way to go on that TT. That is something I sure don't have the focus for. Anyhow have a great weekend!
Congrats! Glad to hear things are paying off.
Christopher,
See if you can get a google earth picture of the tt course and next times have marni get some pictures of the course.
Congratulations on the fine race.
Dad
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