PIR TT - First win of the season

This past Sunday was the PIR TT ... it's about 11.5 miles in distance (6 laps around the PIR auto race track). I love racing this course because it has great pavement, no traffic and some technical aspects with corners but you can stay in your aero bars during the whole race.

I wasn't sure what to expect this year from my legs since I've been working on losing weight more than anything recently and have now dropped about 26 pounds since the 2nd week of February, down to 190 this week. I've been doing one hard day of commuting intervals per week where I'm doing threshold work almost the entire way in and home on my commute ... the only time I'm not at threshold is slowing down for lights. Most of the time I average 280-290 watts for the commute and it gives me 2.5 hours of hard riding time early/mid week. The other commutes are at recovery or endurance pace.

Leading up to the race I basically had a rest week other than commuting intervals on Wednesday and a moderate ride on Thursday ... Monday/Tuesday/Friday/Saturday were spent off the bike. So my legs could either be well rested or not respond from lack of riding.

Thankfully my legs responded fairly well. I started off pretty hot, but was able to settle into a good pace. I was a little leary through the first two corners because I crashed last year on the hairpin turn during a wet weather race. After the 2nd lap, I had my cornering confidence back remembering to lean my body, not the bike in the tighter corners and was taking them at high speed.

The wind was light, but not from a consistent direction, swirling more than anything and temps were pretty warm in the mid 60's.

Watching my HR it was the first race in a year where my HR stayed above 160 BPM for the entire race with an average of 163 BPM.

Coming around the final turn I could see my time and was close to a PR, so I pushed it pretty hard crossing the line at 24:22 ... which was a PR on the course for me by 6 seconds. I wasn't sure how I would fare position wise since results wouldn't be posted until later.

This was also my first race on my Flo disc wheel ... which I like a lot. It feels comfortable, accelerated well, held speed well and felt a little more confident in the corners than my old RENN disc. No complaints from the wheel at all and was expected based on my experience with other Flo wheels.

In the end ... I ended up winning the 40-49 Masters field.

Then I followed up the race competing in the "Eddie" category ... basically no aero gear at all and completed on my road bike. I was able to finish 3rd in this class but could tell my legs were tired and a little dead. I finished this race in 27:05 with an average wattage of 328 watts, which is below what I can normally put out, but with my forearms on the bars my hip angle was closed off and I had just done an all out effort 20 minutes before.

Overall ... a good weekend and my first win of the season.

Next up ... As the Raven Flies, only longer ... it's the first early season 40k Time Trial. I've heard the roads are so-so and there is a fair amount of climbing at around 1400-1500 feet over 24.8 miles.