Stratford CC open 10 mile TT

10/04/2010
Stratford upon Avon
10 mile time trial

April is the time of year where my second claim club, stratford CC, hold there annual open 10 mile TT. This year is was held on a new revised course which will be the same as the one used for the national 10 which Stratford are also hosting. This brought out some big names who would ride today as good prep for the nationals.
Although I'm not concerntrating on TTs this year I still like to keep my hand in as practise for stage races and that sort of thing. Plus I do actually enjoy TTs, I'm find them very pure and very rewardng.

As this was a local course it was close enough for me to ride out to the race. I set off with about an hour to spare which was lucky because half way there I got a rear puncture in my disk wheel. This meant I had to ride back home on a flat, swap my rear wheel and head off again. Luckly I still managed to get there in time but had to ride pretty hard, this wasent such a bad thing as it got me noclwy warmed up. I quickly signed on and headed off to the start.

Que the next incident of the day; after been given a really good push off I went to pedal and ended up pulling my foot out of the clip, it felt like an age to get back In again. After regaining my posture and focuse I set about business and settled in to a typical rythem of pedalling and breathing. Now, as I had to swap my rear wheel I ended up racing with my powertap which ment I would have power data. Because of this and because I felt pretty good, I decided to use this a fitness test to asses my functional threshold power. This is done by getting a max 20 min power and 10 mile time trial are ideal for this.

I didn't use the power meter for pacing and instead went by HR and feel which I prefer to do In a race. The start was fast as it drops down to the turning point, this does mean however that the way back is all draggy and slightly up hill. I raced hard and felt good doing so, I finished I. A time of 22.04 which I was quite contempt with, I don't know my overall result as I rode home before the race finished but I will post it as soon as I know. More pleasing though was the power data whch showed a 10 watt increase in power from my last test 4 weeks ago. To me this is more important than the result or the time at this stage in my rehabilitation.

Nothing beats the feeling of having a good day riding, nice sunny warm weather, racing hard and knowing you are making progress. Let's hope things keep gong this way.