Did first official 25 mile TT last night. Turned out harder than I expected. Largely my own fault as I did no preparation. In fact I only decided to do the event the day before and then only so I could get hold of a club jersey in time for the sportive this weekend.
My preparation was further hindered by me feeling very good the night before, so having quite a hard workout on the Banjo ride, averaging some 190+W. I felt so good I headed off solo at the end to put in a couple of climbs. Then spent the whole day yesterday on my feet doing a mixture of house chores, bike maintenance, golf lesson and errands in town. I literally only stopped 30 minutes before setting off for the event.
Whats more the evening itself turned cold and windy after a day mainly full of sun....
So lots of excuses. Being my first 25miler I really did not know what to expect. I set a target of 280-300W following my 325W average on the 10 miler last month. For the first quarter this seemed well attainable as I averaged 288 but slowly and surely the average declined so that at the turn after 25km the average had dropped to 280 and I had difficulty keeping it around that level up to the finish. My final reading on the bike was 278W but Cyclepeaks reckons 280W for the event itself so just on target. But I felt very tired, unable to hit the 170+ bpm I reached during the 10 miler and writing this the day after I feel much more tired than I expected.
On the good side though the time was respectable. One grail for a cyclist is to get under the hour for 25 miles, and I nearly managed this first attempt do 64 minutes. The course was a bit downhill overall but the wind on the return leg made it harder. Famout last words but I reckon I can break the hour on a warm calm night with a bit of preparation.
Also I set a PB FTP (CP60) of 280W and managed to keep rpm up at 83 average. Re latter though interesting that my most powerful rides are those with lower cadence. Towards end of the event I found a technique of counting 1 2 3 and pushing hard down on the 1 (so alternating legs) seemed to work well in terms of high power but not feeling too hard. Will experiment with this before the next time I brave a TT
Other good news was that my bike performed well, and no bits fell off despite me doing lots of work on it during the day including dismantling bottom bracket and fitting new Toupe seat. Tyres stunning. Inflated to 10bar and they went fine.
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