I got my second crack at the MoSpeed 9 mi TT out in Yadkinville, NC last night. This time I came armed with a fresh battery in my LYC and a backup battery that stays in my race bag from now on. I was released from my duties at the hospital a little bit early in the afternoon and was able to make it out to the race course by about 4:30 PM (my race start time was 6:05 PM). I was excited to have time for a really good pre-race warmup and stretching, but the weather ended up being miserable, so I sat in my car for almost 30 minutes while it poured buckets. The rain finally let up by about 5:00 PM so I headed out on the race course to ride a lap for warmup. At the end of my first lap on the course, I felt so good, that I decided to do another lap to really warm my legs up since it was pretty chilly. I think this ended up being a smart decision. I finished my second warmup lap on the course just a few minutes before 6:00 PM, so by the time I was back to the starting line, it was already time to line up for my race. I felt great; my legs were loose and warm.
At 6:05 PM, they blew the whistle for my start time and I headed out on the course. I surged the first 2-3 minutes of the race at about 400 W to get up to speed and then settled in to my planned power output for the race, 320 W (108% current FTP). I chose 320 W because it was a nice even number and it seemed manageable because my previous PR power output for 20 minutes (in a non-race situation) was 315 W. I realized with my power meter this week, even more than 2 weeks ago, that the course has a lot of long undulating inclines. Rather than riding right at 320 W on the nose, I found that I was riding more at 340-350 W in the flats and inclines 290-300 W on the declines. I was running a 12-23 cassete and I definitely missed having an 11T in the gearing. My legs tend to fatigue pretty fast when I spin much above 95 rpm and I was finding my cadence creeping up into the 100's on some of the shallow declines. Overall though, I am really happy with my pacing. I was able to finish strong and rode at >400 W after passing the "1 km to go" mark in the road. I crossed the finish line in 22:00 flat (average 319 W and 24.5 mph), which although it was 36 seconds faster than race #1, was still only good enough for 7th place (interestingly, the same 6 guys who beat me last race all dropped about 30 seconds and beat me last night...I think it was probably the cool weather). But hey, I can't complain. It's a pretty stacked field of cyclists, including overall winner Chris Monteleone of Kenda Racing (runner-up in U23 road race nationals a couple of years ago). Any night that I only lose by 90 seconds to a guy like that is sucessful in my mind.
In reviewing my power file and heart rate, as well as my perceived exertion, I think that I can still drop some significant time off this 9 mi TT. Now that I know I can't ride much over 300 W on the declines with my current gearing setup, I think I will plan to ride at a higher wattage on the flats and inclines, to bring my overall average watts closer to the 330-340 range.
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