Going into Estacada #2 I had good hopes of turning in a good time. I wasn't recovering from the flu, my legs felt OK (not great but OK), the weather was supposed to be nice and basically everything was set to have a good day on the bike.
The first issue was the weather. A week before the race they were saying 70 degree temps. Mid week 65 degree temps. The day before 60 degree temps. The day of....55 degree temps with some early morning rain that left the roads a little wet in parts, even though it was supposed to be dry.
I arrived to the staging area on time, got set up and had an OK warm up before the race.
Then it was time to head to the start line. Overall, I still felt good.
Out of the starting gate, everything is going well. My HR is up in the 160 bpm range for the first few minutes and I settle into a nice rhythm. From all I can tell my speeds are up from the first race, but it's hard to tell overall.
I get to the only steep climb on the course and things are still going well, until I go to get back into my big ring. My front chain falls off to the pedal side of the crank, so I keep pedaling and try and pull the chain back on, this time dropping it to the inside of my small ring onto the bottom bracket. Two more rounds of this and it finally hooks onto a ring and I can get under way again. Some lost time, but not more than 10-15 seconds or so.
Under way again and things are normal again.
For the first half of the course I haven't passed anybody so it's been a lonely ITT so far. Heading into the turnaround I see a few people, one of which is a rider from my club who is just getting into racing. He had a 4 minute lead on me at the start but knew I would catch him from the first races times. About 5 minutes after the turnaround, I pass him...the first of the day.
Then it's solo again.
It's at this point that I think I went into la-la land and didn't pay attention to what I was doing. Over the next 10 minutes my heart rate hovered between 145-150 bpm, which is basically a high tempo range, not a threshold pace for me. I'm pushing a big gear and not really thinking about it and just keep plodding along seeing another rider coming up a few miles before the finish....passing him with about 3 miles to go before the finish.
Coming into the last mile I finally get my HR above 150 bpm again and into the upper 150's on the final climb of the race.
I finished with a time of 47:57, which was slower than the first race and about 1.5 minutes slower than I should be able to do on this course. I'm not really sure what happened, but I have several thoughts.
1. My position on my bike isn't optimal. I changed things up this year going to a more comfortable seat and a shorter, but lower stem than last year. However the seat can't be moved as far forward as my other seat and I'm more compact than last year. So I think I'm not getting full power compared to last year.
2. I have done enough high intensity work to this point. My 20 minute threshold is good, still in the 380 watt range on my road bike, but that power isn't translating to my TT bike and solo efforts. I haven't been able to do a lot of high intensity group rides like I did last year, which is having a mental effect on my pushing through the pain and keeping my HR in the higher end of the spectrum.
With the TTT only three weeks away, I need to get things sorted out.
The good is that I ride much harder and don't have a problem pushing it when I'm around other people...so in the TTT I should be just fine pushing it. There is also the fact that I'm still able to finish 2nd in my category and 9th fastest time on the day just doing a high tempo ride in an ITT so my fitness is very good right now.
The bad...I just have to get over the mental thing this year and give it top level efforts. I think practicing with my teammates over the next two weeks will help a lot with this.
Overall....not a bad result, but I have a bit of a hollow feeling after this race knowing that I can go a lot faster....I just didn't :(
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