State time trial race report
I competed in state (missouri) time trials on saturday. I am competing in the 55-59 Masters category and unfortunately in our state we get stuck doing the 40K TT. This is a really long distance to do in a Time trial for this old guy. To keep going full out for 1 hour plus is pretty tough on this old guy. Once you hit 60 and up they let you do 20K, which I wish they would let us do at 50+. This is a USA cycling licensed event.
The course is an out and back on rural missouri roads with pretty rough pavement. Mostly flat with some rollers, and there is a pretty large group of small hills on both side of the turn around. I believe its 400 feet of climb in the 40K.
Wind was out of the Northeast at 8 MPH. The course is mainly east and west with a 3 mile bend to the turn going N-S. So wind was mainly with us on the way out and against on the way back. This is the first year I was running my full TT bike, skin suit and helmet.
I was the first out of my age group with 7 other in my age behind me starting in 1 minute intervals. Felt good first half kept pretty good pace and think I was about 25.5 MPH average at the turn. At the turn You could really feel the wind, and pace definitely slowed. I don't have a power meter on my TT bike, so I pretty much go by my heart rate. I try to get it up around 160 and hold it there, as I can tell that feels about right for output. I was hoping to keep somewhere around a 23.5MPH average over the course. I have my garmin set to read Heart rate, cadence, Instant Speed and average speed. I could tell the avg speed declining on the leg into the finish. It was gradually dropping, 24 then 23.5 then 23. My heart rate was pretty solid at 156-159 through out. I felt like it was a pretty strong effort, but at the end I was down to 22.6MPH. My time was 1H 6:15M.
Not as fast as I had hoped. I went back and looked at last years time 1H 11:6M . So I guess not too bad. Dropped overall time by just under 5 minutes. Pretty good drop. Ended up 4th in my age group out of 8. Back for more training next year.
Overall it was a good competition. A little disappointed I didn't do better.