well, i headed off to hillingdon last night and as i mentioned i was looking to see how much of the rejuvinated strength i've felt on the bike recently was still there. having done a nasty 5k inerval running session earlier in the morning and still struggled with this chest infection for much of it, i was inerested to see what the race would reveal. the ride over is well.... congested. its rush hour, majour roads around heathrow and not many kodak moments for the scenery photographers out there. i got there nice and early though and the legs had been pretty good power wise and the RPE had been about right too. it was looking ok.
toeing the start line i always look at the E/1/2/3 race and tell myself that i've got to get in that group one day. the only problem is that a. i CANT sprint and b. close race finishes are far too hazzardous for my liking. this is training after all and a crash here will keep me out of run or decent swim training for at least 4-5 days.... not the aim of the exercise. i'm happy to hammer as much as i can and just let the rest have their fun in the last 100m.
the course at hillingdon is a closed 1 mile circuit. there's a nice long incline to the finish line and 3 nice sharp corners that go down then up then down again, just after. it makes for some great training and when the wind blows it does a lot of damage. depending on time and light restrictions, we normally ride 30-40k.
after the first couple of laps not much seamed to be going on so i thought i'd see how good the legs really were feeling and hit the front and see what happened. 2mins at near VO2 Max watts later and i turned to see no one had bothered to go with me and the bunch didnt seam to be doing much either. so i made a choice......head down and bury myself for as long as i could!!!.... 20 minutes later and i was enjoying it. there's a real pleasure in this kind of pain, PROVIDED you feel like its worthwhile and you're in front.... if i was dropped and burying myself to get back on a bunch then i've not doubt the pleasure would be far removed ha ha.
having the watts to watch makes this kind of exercise fascinating. on such a repetative circuit u quickly get to see what u can and should be putting out at different places. and you can also see when you can no longer keep it up. i'd got about a 150m gap on the group.... looks a long way on a small circuit..... but at 20mins of 120% threshold watts, i could see i was starting to tail off. i sat up and waited for them to catch up, happy with how it had felt and more importantly happy knowing that i'd normally look to hold 20% less watts in a race.... this kind of workout makes that feel A LOT EASIER!
to my surprise, once caught, nobody seamed particulally kean to do any work at the front. a breather of 90 seconds can do wonders to energy levels i find and i was more than happy to take it up agan. jumping once more, once again i found myself thoroughly enjoying being on the bike and pushing my self..... saturday hadnt been a one off..... thank goodness. i wasnt too fussed about the rest of the race and just spent it pushing hard then dropping back and repeating the exercise. (i'll try to attach the power data to this if i can.) come the final lap and i happily dropped off the back of the front runners who powered away up the hill. i had "my win" and there was NO WAY i could have got close to winning a sprint finish.
a nice ride home at aerobic watts or just above and a perfect 3 hour ride with some nice high end intensity work thrown in the middle and just in time to see arsenal qualify for the final of the champions league.... nice!
looking back at my long and later, little, breaks during the race it shows you just how phenominally strong Pro cyclist are. they sometimes break for up to 100k or more and hold speeds over 50kph for this time..... quite incredible what their bodies can do and their minds are prepared to suffer.
i'll be back in a couple of weeks and maybe try to stay out for 25 minutes instead... we'll see.
