Time Trial Season!

As I typically do; on January 1st every year I grow my silly mustache and goatee to indicate Time Trail season is around the corner and my training is focused on completing negative splits and increasing my power over long periods. Since this winter has been really mild my bike miles have never dropped under 200 miles a week and have several times completed centuries on Saturday and Sundays. This makes the long steady states much more tolerable. Thankfully here in Colorado I have no shortages of hills to climb and no shortage of routes that make me suffer and build strength. I just can’t wait until the Haystack Time Trial. After that I can shave this silly face hair and get back to normal. Superstition at its best! This weekend I raced in my first two Time Trial of the year. I have a new born baby at home that is just over a week old. I was up with her from 3am to around 5am before my season opening TT. Thank goodness my start time was later in the morning. I got to sleep about 4 hours before I had to make the hour drive north. The weather was unseasonably warm for this time of the year. Last year it was cold and had really bad swirling winds. This race usually lives up to its name Frost bite Time Trial! My new TT bike setup with its custom art turned a lot of heads. Basically it’s my old TT frame but all new components and bars. SRAM red works perfect on my TT bike. The shifts are quick and overall it is very good. I like it much more than my old dura-ace setup. I will never switch my road bike from campy but for time trial, SRAM is awesome. Saturday: The race start temp was around 45 degrees and had a 10mph cross wind or so. At the start I headed out and felt tired from the workouts over the last few weeks. As the TT went on my power splits increased. As I was approaching the turn around I was about 10 seconds behind my minute man. I powered on and passed him a few miles from the finish. I added steady power through out the race but finished with plenty in the tank. I will work on that as some of the other TT’s approach. At the end of the day I won the 35+ cat 3 TT and was 13th overall. Sunday: What an awesome day. Temps in the 60’s! I rode the race in just my TT suit and nothing else. I had a descent warm up but then my start time was pushed back nearly 2 hours. I kept warm and finally got to start. I held back way too much on the start but caught my 30 second man about 3 minutes into the race. This one had some pretty good rollers so I just stayed steady. I was really taking it to easy. After the longest climb of the TT’s turn around I noticed my 30 man was cutting into my time. I had to stop fooling around and lay it down on the way back. I put out more effort and took the time back off of my 30 second guy. At the end of the race I wasn’t even spent. This race was poorly ridden by me. As I rode home I told myself over and over better to die at the end than to leave it in the tank. The results are not in but my time on my garmin was right up with the college men A times. If they ever post them I will update the document. Pedal Hard!! Rob