WWTT - In The Cloud
· Sep 28, 06:25 AM
Today was my second test during my trip back home, the roller ski time trial on the Westminster West Road. I have at least 10 years of meaningful results on the course, so it’s a good test to do. I was looking for something better than my effort up Moosilauke on Sunday, but a little unsure because I haven’t been feeling anything special since then. Wednesday’s roller ski was encouraging. I started out with a little elevated HRs, but they broke after about 1.25 and I finished up feeling good. Tennis was good too, and I didn’t play for long enough to get sore from trying to move fast a couple of times.
This morning all of Putney was in a cloud. Temps were already in the 70s (it’s been more like summer than fall on this trip – though the trees are out, so it’s all okay with me), and the air was pretty stagnant. Calm actually makes for a good day on this course, as if it’s windy, it’s going to be a headwind. The roads were a bit slick which usually means not quite as fast, especially when the climbs are slippery, but all in all I’d say conditions were good.
Warm up was nothing special, but my HRs were not high. I skied moderately hard up the hill to Temple’s Sawmill (producer of quality pine wedges) and saw mid-160s, which was very encouraging. On Sunday at Moosialuke I saw 186 on the warm up, and during the race I cleared 180 by 1 minute, and wasn’t below that for the rest of the climb. I was a little worried about not being able to get the HR up, but decided against any sort of overly hard warm up, and just went for it.
Double poling off the start I felt fantastic. I was going huge. I was also scared of breaking my right pole. I’ve broken a couple of One-Ways roller skiing this summer, and my right one is a cut down skate pole. It was originally 175cm in length, and I don’t know if that makes it a lot springier than the one that was a 155, but it is. Scary springy, there were many pole plants where I thought it was just going to explode in the center of the shaft, a la Sprint Relay in Nationals this year. But, it’s still in one piece, which is a good thing.
The first climb was okay, though I seemed to transition into striding a little sooner than I was expecting to. Felt my legs straight-away, and they did not feel good. That’s becoming more and more standard the more I do this time trial. It’s pretty double pole heavy, so my legs are doing a lot of static work and then they’re asked for a lot of short hard bursts. I was back to KDP pretty quick and then past Leaders and into DP. 2k in and I decided it was time to push it a little.
So I started getting after it. I pegged it on the main climb, didn’t take a halfway split, and put myself into a lot of difficulty on that climb. It was hard to find any sort of tempo going across the flat by the Westminster town line, but the double poling was still strong. The last striding section up to Ranney Farm felt really good – actually all the striding sections felt good today, I felt pretty on top of it all day, which was probably the most encouraging thing from the TT.
Not having to battle a headwind for the last 3 minutes was great, well worth the suspended mist and damp roads. I finished in 17:58, which was 2 seconds faster than my secret goal for the day – well, 1 second I guess, because I wanted to break 18 minutes – and 16 seconds faster than I was in June. Anyways, very satisfying after Sunday’s debacle. It also means that I’ve now moved past the Swedes into 3rd place all time, and second fastest person. I’m not sure where exactly I’m going to find the 32 seconds I still need to catch Shams, but it’s something to work on for the next few years. I’ve wanted to get a 17-something for a long time now, so I’m happy.
The other thing is that I seem to be getting better at racing. I used to be the master of knowing when I had something to work with, putting out my best efforts on those days, and putting it all together. Conversely, I think I had a lot of days where I didn’t quite put the effort out like I did on the good days. Since the classic race in Norway last winter I seem to be a little better about using everything I have on a given day. That should help prevent debacles like the classic race at Nationals last year.
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kind of ran out of steam right in the middle of
— ZC Sep 27, 08:48 PM #