>Saturday 30 May – VTTA National 10m TT Championship, Cambourne (F2A/10)
To the mountains of Cambridgeshire for my second national championship in two weeks. They even let me in the main event this time.
The journey up was a nightmare – an hour in a traffic jam on the A1(M) – but I’d allowed plenty of time and only lost a bit of my warm up. The course was fast and the day was hot. A long 23 minute time should have been a shoe in. But I ended up with a 24:12 – a headwind to the turn taking far too long to overcome. Still, that’s another best since the early 1980s. The new 55 tooth chainring helped on the return leg as well!
Race stats: 10 miles in 24:12 (24.79mph). 54th out of 107 finishers. Slowest mile (3): 2:46 (21.69mph). Fastest mile (9): 2:01 (29.75mph). Top speed: 32.4mph. First 5 miles: 13:23, next 5 miles: 10:49. Max heart rate: 168bpm, average HR: 165bpm. Winner: Tim Carter (Virgin Active) 20:30. On standard: Dennis Milsom (Mid Shropshire Whs) +10:05
Sunday 31 May – Westerley CC 25m TT, Marlow (H25/2)
Yesterday’s ’10’, the heat and the travelling took it out of me. I couldn’t sleep. Not that there was much chance. Sunday morning TTs start early and my alarm was set for 5:30am. Arriving at the HQ, there was no wind. Only as I rode up (and I mean ‘up’) to the start did the flags start to move. It was going to be a headwind after the turn.
I went down the ski slope start faster than ever before despite almost bottling it. Half way was reached in under 30 minutes. Going well, despite all the aches and pains. Of course, the five miles after the far turn was a corrective. I could barely maintain forward momentum. I’m glad I have a couple of single event weekends coming up – I’m not recovering well.
I finished with 1:1:40, which at least isn’t a 1:3. I needed to back up last week’s 1:0 and I did.
Race stats: 25 miles in 1:1:40 (24.32mph). 40th out of 69 finishers. Slowest mile (16): 2:59 (20.11mph). Fastest mile (2): 1:40 (36.00mph). Top speed: 39.5mph. First 12.5 miles: 29:06 next 12.5 miles: 32:34. Max heart rate: 162bpm, average HR: 153bpm. Winner: Simon Bateson (East London Velo) 50:46
The last few weeks have been good – lots of PB LTSs. What is interesting is that it has coincided with a drop in training load. Some of this drop has been work related, some to do with racing more and some deliberate (to encourage a mini ‘peak’). I’m pleased that my monitoring system, though crude, allows me to track this. It’s crude because it relies on heart rate – see above how Saturday’s HR figures were ‘inflated’ by the hot day and Sunday’s were depressed by the previous day’s efforts.
Of course, you can’t lay off training forever, so this peak must end and fitness must be rebuilt. I hope to have another good patch in July if I can engineer it (or, failing that, stumble into it).
Next week I have entered a 30m TT – my ’30’ personal is pathetic, so an all time PB is on the cards. The following week I have another ’50’.
Lance Woodman 