Athlete Blogs
June 26th, 2009Louisville Here I Come
This will be my last post before the two events I'm racing at masters nationals - the RR on tuesday and the TT on Wednesday. Both events are early, 8AM. I love that. Hell, I'd race at 6AM if I could.Last year was interesting, the run up to nationals was hectic, ill planned and not anywhere near optimal. My training was interrupted by pesky surgery and I only had my TT bike for a few weeks before the race. I might have had 8 rides on it before the nationals TT. Not much at all. My form was good, but not great, not build on a solid base of training, so confidence was iffy. The field was strong - I made the mistake of looking up all the guys who were in my race, looking at their results, and getting worried. X-pros, etc. But that also made me super motivated to make every pedal stroke count, extract every single last watt. I could not have gone one second faster. I was totally shocked by the result, the margin. The effort affected me for days - I was shredded.
This year is different. I have spent considerable time on the TT bike, raced a good number of time trials and have yet to have anyone get close. The closest has been 38 seconds over 19km. Not close. I'm confident in my position, my power on the TT bike, my warmup and complete routine. Focus on the bike is great, keeping head low, no messing around, I just get in a zen-like state and kock out the watts (though my face may show a bit of pain). Mentally, it's hard, really hard. I can honestly say there hasn't been a single TT where I haven't thought about quitting at least once in the race - it's so enticing to think about letting off the gas, allowing the intense pain to subside. But you have to push through that, ignore it, drive to the finish. I'm sure that many poor TT'ers do not maintain this focus. They let the power drop, they ease up, they loose time.
On tuesday I'm doing the RR - 60 miles, on a hilly course (no climbs though) that suits me well and I'd love ot win the RR again. I'm racing to win, planning on putting myself in a position to take that title again. If it doesn't work out, that's ok - but I'm there to do my best.
The next morning is the TT - I'll probably start around 8:20 or so - 30 second intervals. Lots of good friends, clients are going to be out there on course at or around the same time. With short intervals, there will be plenty of passing and confusion too.
The TT is the event I'm 100% focused on. My confidence is high, my routine is solid. I'm calmer, more relaxed about it than last year. I'm basically driving 1200 miles so I can ride my bike for about 30 minutes on wednesday morning. If all goes well, if I ride a good race, wednesday will be a fun day. We are staying in town that night, planning on celebrating and relaxing. Not thinking about any races past wednesday - I might take a break for a few weeks, or I might do every race I can find, we will see.
We are leaving early Sunday AM - so packing up tomorrow. I'm really glad this year Kristy can join me, it will mean so much more to have here there at the finish line both days.
I plan on tweeting updates along the way, but no posts till after the TT on wed. If you don't follow me on twitter get with the program. Tweet Tweet.
-Coach Pete
