Originally Posted by
Bandera
"The key to successful time trialing is winning the fight with yourself. You must never give in to pain by reducing your effort....Pain is normal and it is necessary."
-Eddie Borysewicz 1980-84 US Olympic Cycling Coach
I love this quote, I think its totally true. My opinion of this particular friend is that she is very prone to losing the fight with herself- if its hard, her habit is to back off. Maybe this is why her coach wants her to do this TT.
I have found that during a TT, once the going gets tough, the only logical thing is to back off. Every part of your being- brain, heart, lungs, legs- are telling you to ease up. You somehow have to convince yourself to do the least logical thing and stay the course. Kind of easy to do if you have a power meter and have ridden some TT type efforts prior to your first race. I'm not sure she's done this. I actually knew I'd be doing my first TT for months before I could work it into my schedule, so whenever I had the chance in the course of some other workout, I'd practice TT efforts. So I kind of knew what it would be like before my first TT. But doing it without a power meter is very difficult for me, so it makes it hard to me to advise.