"The 33"-Road Bike Racing - Prologue Pacing Stra-tee-jury...?

Just like Bush said.

Anyways, in a somewhat serious manner, I have the state road race weekend coming up, and I'd like to place well in the Cat 3 Omnium. I am by no means a TT monster, but I do have this card to play: the TT is almost entirely uphill, something that is rarely seen in the state of Illinois.

So here's the deal: it's not a true Time Trial, in the 40k, aerobars, tri-geek sense of the word. It's ~6km/3.65mi long, and gains about 250ft total along the way. It should be fast, but the elevation change should be enough to help me along the way.

So, as a person who has done 20km ITTs twice, and a 20km TTT once, how do I deal with an ITT that is 1/3rd the length of the races that I'm "used" to?

Here are the relevant pieces of information:
weight: 65kg at the moment
aerobars: vision tech mini clip ons
1min 554w
20min 325w+
5min: unknown. I realize that would be helpful but I always do those as part of a pyramid or after other repeats.

Here's the course:

What's your MMP for the duration your aiming for? Looks like the %grade only gets to 3-4% at the most?

When I did my 2.4km TT I just jammed it out of the gate and and settled into/about my 3 min MMP and jammed it out of the corners. Too short really for negative splitting.

Your course looks like a good course for negative splitting as it gets steeper about halfway in.

Looks like it sets up pretty well for your abilities (i.e. high W/kg). I'm assuming the winning time will be sub-20:00 but not a whole lot less than that, right? If so, set a target for 340 watts or whatever and try to stay pretty steady. Or you might perhaps try to average 320 watts for the 1.75 miles, then 350 watts until you crest the hill and then just hold on for dear life.

--Steve

Long, hard warmup.

Smarter people than I had some things to say about warmup here:

http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread.php?t=298880

I think a sub-9:15 time is possible. That was good for 13th overall last year, and 3rd in the Cat3s.

Now, about negative splitting the race. I agree that I should start off hard and go harder. In terms of maximum time gain, if I were doing this side by side with another person of the same size, etc, would I put more time into them on the hill or the flat using a variable pacing strategy? I.e., where should I really throw it down to gain the most time? I want to go 330-340 for 5min, then 350+ for the last 4+. Or, should I put it down on the flatter parts, where my overall power is less, to make up ground, and sort of go with whatever I have left for the uphill and hope w/kg are still on my side?

It's said that the steeper the climb, the more an increase in power will affect your speed.

So sayeth analyticcycling.com:

1% - 320 watts @ 76 kg: 39.672 kph
360 watts @ 76 kg: 41.76
(gain 2.088)

4% - 320 watts @ 76 kg: 27.576
360 watts @ 76 kg: 29.88
(gain: 2.304)