I’m nearing the end of my base building period in my training plan for Ironman France-Nice. So far, things have been going pretty well; I’ve managed to stave off a few colds and sinus bugs, stayed injury free and, for the most part, stuck to the training plan and the weekly hourly totals for activities. I’ve been using Training Peaks and its Virtual Coach to formulate my training plan. For the past few months, as typical for the base period, I’ve been keeping things pretty relaxed, heart rate zones 1 and 2 with brief intervals into 3 and 4 but no real sprinting or prolonged hard efforts. I’ve been regularly swimming with a group at lunchtime a few times a week and now that we’ve entered Daylight Savings Time, Tuesday night rides have started up with the Reston Bike Club. I joined the group 3 ride (the scale goes from 1-5, 1 being the fastest, this week there were only groups 1,3 and 5) 2 weeks ago. The ride took a little longer than an hour, and we were back in time before sunset. It was good seeing some people I hadn’t seen since last year. I also met a few people and put names to faces from the local triathlon club, TriRATS. I chatted with a few guys about the upcoming Tour de Skyline, a two-day ride along Skyline Drive, another training group formulating for hill training repeats on my favorite nearby climb, Hunter Station Rd. I plan on integrating these into my training plan to help prepare me for the quad burning course at Ironman France.
With all of the low-intensity training, I had been itching to get a good hard effort in so I checked out bikereg.com to see if there were any local time trials coming up and found one in Suffolk, VA, the Dismal Dash Time Trial, within 10 minutes from where my sister-in-law lives. Anna Lyn had been planning on visiting her that weekend anyway, so I got the green light to sign up for it. It was a “C” priority race of course, I just wanted to go out and have fun and get a good hard effort in. We got down there Saturday afternoon, after I taught my weekly Spinning class where we, by coincidence, had a “race day” profile for the purposes of testing and determining heart rate zones. I was scheduled to go off at 9:28 AM, Sunday morning, so I went to bed early enough to get in a good 8 hours of sleep. I got down to the race site early Sunday morning to allow time for eating a quick breakfast, checking in and getting in a good warmup. The race used a chip timing system, which I had never seen in a time trial before and proved to be a source of panic at the race start. I picked up my things, set up my trainer and got in a good warmup with a few race efforts mixed in. I cranked the iPod up as I turned the pedals and ended up repeating “Lose Yourself” by Eminem about 5 times. I was in such a zone that I looked down at my watch and saw that the time was 9:26. I clipped the bike out of the trainer and rolled down to the start with heart rate up and eager to roll out. Once I got to the starting tent, the starting official asked me if I had my chip. I had forgotten to put it on my front skewer! Thank God my niece and nephew weren’t showing up to the race til I was expected to finish because I let out a few curse words in my panic. I rolled back to my car, fussed with the skewer and attached the chip. I rolled back to the start, not looking at my watch but knowing I was late for my start time. I put my foot down at the start line and I was off. My goal for this race was to maintain a good steady effort throughout, not going to hard in the beginning that I would suffer at the end and also finish the race with everything left on the road. This was my first race using my new compact cranks and I was flying down the road using a higher than normal cadence. I managed to pass quite a few people over the first half of the race, averaging around 25 MPH on the flat course. I rounded the turn at the halfway point and encountered my second snafu of the day, I dropped my chain. I knew my front dérailleur needed a bit of adjustment but I didn’t want to fiddle with it that morning . I had to stop for about a minute to untangled the chain and get it back on my big ring. Infuriated, I hammered the next few miles, passing the rider that had just passed me while I was taking care of my mishap. The last 10 miles or so, I realized that on the way down, the course was slightly downhill and we were riding with the wind at our back. I watched the grass next to me and confirmed I was riding into a headwind. I tried to stay low and tucked in my aerobars. I maintained my speed around 20 as I focused on keeping my pedal stroke round, not mashing the pedals. I passed a few more riders and watched the miles tick off my clock. I had one rider pass me, with a little over a mile left. I tried to crank harder to catch him after he got a few yards ahead of me , but wasn’t able to catch him before I rolled over the finish line. Anna Lyn was there with Sara, her sister, and husband JP and their kids, Page and Jackson. Page yelled, “Go, Uncle Mike!” as I passed them and rolled into the parking lot. My vision was cloudy and I felt a little bit dizzy, all signs that I had pushed as hard as possible. By my clock, I went 1:06 for the 40k course. Because of my starting mishap, I ended with 1:08 by the official timing system, good enough for 11th out of the 50+ person Cat 5 field. For a “C”priority race, one that I had not really dedicated my training to, this was a great result for me. I met up with another teammate of mine from the DC Triathlon Club, Zack. We had competed for the club on relay teams last summer at Savageman. He’s a hell of a runner. He is evidently a very strong cyclist too because he had a great showing for his first ever time trial. We grabbed some post-race food at IHOP and Zack headed back to DC while I met up with Anna Lyn and her sister’s family. I enjoyed the rest of my weekend, spending time playing with my niece Page and attending one of her dance classes; this two-year old girl is quite talented. I wouldn’t be surprised if you see Page on Dancing with the Stars some day.
Sorry for the long post, but I had to make up for the past week. Here’s the data from my time trial at motionbased.com: