Brent and I discussed last week some changes to experiment for Leroy this week. I also had some theories I wanted ot try too. I am sure some think and rightly so I am only going there to try and break the course record, but thats only a small part of it. I am there to test and improve first and foremost. Rudy loaned me a Zipp dimpled disc wheel to try, I lowered my stem 1 full cm and would be running off of percieved exertion alone. NO Power tap this time.
The wheel required a lot of tinkering with cable tension and end stops and even during warm-up I was still not able to drop it into the 11 cog without soft pedaling for a secnd till I heard it drop. Quickly the wheel is fast and I DO think its faster than my wheel covers. It seems to accelerate quicker and its easier to chnage speed during th run too. The rest is purely subjective, but it realy feels like its just not there.
Brent gave me a new warm-up to try and I was able to get 75% of it done pre-race. Jim Behren had me go first and when he said go I sprinted harder than normal, but shorter, got on the clip-ons and really started to hammer. My HR was higher (and so was the temperature, but less humidity) all the way out and my speed seemed quicker than last time too. After the turn I think I was into a headwind where last week it was a tailwind. Percieved exerion (PE) was still high, but speed seemed down. I pushed hard up the rise and hard up the hill to the turnaround, but again not as high of speed as last week. I also now am comfy in the corner here so I nailed it fast and on the bars this time. I experimented last training ride with hauling ass in the corners on the bike and its paying off now. Its like the bikes push and need ot be manhandled to the apex with a lot of lean.
This time knowing last week I lost alll my time around the turnaround I sprinted out of the turnaround and down the hill. I saw 37mph down the hill and watched the speed drop to 34, 32, 30 as I approached the corner. I Went through hard and leaned way over and did a hard 2 second outof the saddle sprint and was 2.5mph faster than last week!!
The last two miles proved to be a mental and physical hell that truly made me want to stop pedaling and give up. I wouldnt and didnt, but let me tell you I was in agony and it was so bad I couldnt even push over a small rise. I had to wait till it was over and will myself to push on the slight downsides to pick speed back up. What was an easy 31mph at tempo on warm-up was everything I had now and not only that, my heart rate was pinned 4beats below max for 14 minutes straight. I honestly couldnt have gone much harder. I went 2bpm higher than ever before and my average HR for the ride was 96% of my new max HR.
I drove it home past Jim in a new personal best time of 16:52 at 27.4mph (7.72 miles)!!! I am sure that everythng we did this last week paid off and constant time trialing as painful as it is has really helped. Its like doing intervals or climbing. The more you do it, the easier it becomes. OK, in this case it never gets any easier, it gets a lot harder, but you do get faster.
How much faster?? Well my first time ever on the course was 17:15 which was good. With the exception of Matt Weeks (who by the way is a friend, not an adversary!) that was a record time by 20 or more seconds I think. The next time I put my disc covers on my rear wheel, but paced myself on what I thought weather conditions had dealt the course. I ended up going 17:05. This time I went with no power tap, dimpled disc, lowered my frontal area and a modified warm-up and a go for broke pacing strategy. Alright there was no pacing strategy!! It was go hard on the out and bring it home with anything I had left in the tank. I'd love to know what my average watts were tonight!!
I think I am done at Leroy for the year. I am fearful another run like tonight will zapp my mental reserves for Presque Isle to push that hard again. I would like to thank Jim Behren for doing this course for so many years. Theres probably three more events so maybe I'll go to the last one for fun....haha..did you hear that I called Time Trials fun....
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