90km Cycle Time Trial

Today I had my 90km cycle time trial and I've attached my pretty power graph - time trial starts just after square 1 following a bit of a warm up! Again the time trial was on the cateye trainers so it was a test of pure strength, power and speed! I was the only one in my squad down for 90km so I knew that it was important to stay focused on my own speed, distance and power goals and not get distracted by the number of people around me stopping after 60km!


I had got through my last 90km time trial on a cateye trainer in 2 hours 24 minutes so I was looking to improve on this and set my sights on a finish somewhere between 2:18 and 2:20. I was also pretty determined to get to the 40km mark quicker than the recorded time for my last 40km time trial when my brake had been locked on the wheel - I knew that was a bit of a dangerous tactic as I could quite easily blow up and not make the next 50km but deep down I knew that I was faster and stronger than an hour flat 40km and was confident I could hold the pace through the remaining 50km.

I approached today like I would a race, eating a hearty pre race meal of porridge and protein powder at the crack of dawn! I packed up my bento box with race nutrition and intended to eat like I would during my Ironman bike - 20 minute intervals alternating between GU energy gels and 1/4 pieces of protein bar. By 7.15am I was set up on my bike ready to go and I got the signal from Tony to start.

I decided to break the time trial down into 10km segements so that it was mentally easier to deal with! Probably one of the biggest challenges doing a long cycle time trial on a trainer is mental endurance rather than the physical side of things. It is hard work to keep pushing yourself at a maximum effort for so long when you are stationary in a room rather than out on the road racing against other athletes that you can use to pick and pass.

I started hard at a speed of 40-41km/hr and opted to begin with a higher pedal cadence and then move into bigger gears as the time trial progressed as I'm much more comfortable grinding it out at a lower pedal cadence in a big gear - I felt that when the fatigue began to hit I would be able to lower my pedal cadence and achieve the same speed for less percieved effort!

I hit the 40km mark in just under 57 minutes which gave me a much needed mental boost - a small wave of panic did wash over me when the reality of another 50km at the same effort sank in but I focused on the 10km blocks and hitting them in 15 minute increments. The hardest 10km block came at 70km when I felt so close but yet so far to finishing. Once I hit 80km however I knew that I was on the home straight and it was simply a case of pushing on at a consistent effort.

I managed to keep it together and average a speed of 41km/hr which got me a 2hour 12minute and 51second finish for the effort! Not only had I managed to pace myself consistently for the 90km but I had managed to knock 12 minutes off my previous personal best effort over that distance - all in all I was one happy camper!!

I got all of about 2 minutes to celebrate my achievement then it was a quick transition into my running shoes and into a 40 minute run - 10 minutes of easy followed by a 20 minute hard effort and then a 10 minute easy. I was unsure exactly how my legs were going to perform given the fact they had never cycled that hard for that long in their life before but I was pleasantly surprised to feel them fire into action after 5 minutes of easy running and cope with the increase in pace midway through the run.

Tomorrow it's time to do my last battle with concrete monster before getting on the plane to Hawaii so I'm seriously hoping that my legs recover enough to push out a solid 3 hour run tomorrow! Compression tights on and an early bed tonight!