Wow! It worked!
Long time since I’ve
been able to manage my body like that. Couple
of really hard weeks, nice week long taper including a brisk ‘10’ on the weds,
a steady 2¾ ride @130 BPM thurs and a very gentle pootle with Sue on the Friday. Plus spending the two days preceding the
event consuming every available bit of carbohydrate in the cupboards. A ‘Peak’!! Woo!!!
The API Metrow 25 on
Saturday had been a target from a few weeks out but it was sooo nearly rained
off. Then it wasn’t cancelled but I nearly
didn’t start because it was bucketing it down as I prepared to go and the spray
from the traffic was quite scary. Sod
it! It was either do a good ride or get
squashed by a truck. Glad I bought the
brightest rear LED money can buy!!
3-2-1 go!!
Easy roll up to
speed then a nice easy roll for the next 3 or 4 minutes until my body caught up
with me. 162 BPM for the first 1/3 of
the ride. Still lashing it down but I
seemed to be going okay, 27-28mph. Had a
truck come past really, really close about 8 miles in and it shit me right
up. I was just about to pack it in when
I caught sight of a young clubmate on his way home on the other side of the
road. “If he can stick with it,” I
thought to myself, “then so will I. Sod it!”
I took a mental
note of his time as he passed under the bridge.
Feeling good, HR
allowed up to 167-168BPM. Rain easing up
a bit.
The turn. Feel good, legs filling up slightly but
nothing too bad. 12.5 miles in 27 and a
bit minutes. Not bad….
Quite surprised to
find a very slight tailwind on the way home and for the first time I realised I
could get under 55 mins – a target since 2009!!
I reached the
bridge where I’d spotted my clubmate and checked the time. Fuzzy mental arithmetic… Subtract the first time… He started 18 minutes before me…. Add that…
Blimey!! I’m over a minute
up!! I was on a ride!!
I cracked very
slightly at about 18 miles and had to ease up just a tiny bit for a minute or
two but recovered ok. 4.5 miles to go
and I calculated that if I could maintain 30mph for the next 9 mins, I’d smash
55 mins and do a 54!! Pacing went out
the window and I buried myself, HR well over 170. The speed didn’t drop below 31mph. The last two miles were basically a 4 minute
interval session and with ½ a mile to go I got the old fuzzy vision and was in
agony.
Across the line and
53:40 something. Get in!!!!!
 |
| The old Flux Capacitor was working overtime today.... |
It wasn’t the
fastest 25 I’d ever done but I couldn’t remember what was. As soon as I got home I trawled through the
archives at Tyler
Towers and found clippings
of several 53 minute 25’s, the quickest being a 53:06, but that wasn’t the
fastest. I did a 52 in 1996, I can
remember where I did it and even who won.
I’ll have to trawl through the records at Cycling Weekly when I get time
and find out what the exact time was.
I’m now just left
with the niggling doubt, rather like my fast 50 the other week, that I started
too slowly and could have perhaps shaved another 20-30 seconds of my ride. But I still don’t think I could have done a
52, so that’s a small consolation.
Right, need to get the 10 time down to something respectable now.....
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