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Sunday 15 July 2012

API Metrow 25 E2/25. 53:50! New current PB!!


  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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