Last year, my first time trial of the season was this race on the same course where I posted 25.06 and finished 30/54 finishers. The things that have changed for this year were a winter or turbo training where I could, a new black skinsuit, and a decision not to wear compression socks and shave my legs. I was hoping for an improvement as I rocked up to the village hall at Scoulton for signing on and collection of my number 49 !It was a surprise mild spell and the temperature had hit a barmy 15 degrees. There was also a siff breeze of 15mph whic meant that the first stretch would be a stinker of a headwind !
I warmed up well and made my way around to the start. The warm up felt good and I practiced keeping a cadence of around 100 rpm ( I just wish I could maintain this during the actual race! ).
I was ready then, as I was sent on my way at 2.49pm, however, my enthusiasm initially wilted against the headwind and my speeds looked to just drop and drop. I doubted that I had done any worthwhile winter work during that first stretch, but things improved with some side winds as I got further toward the Watton turnaround. At the turn, my Garmin registered 22.5 but this was with a 20 second delay as I had started it early. The return leg was a joy to ride and in parts I was topping 30mph and posting a negative split. My cadence was good and I was never really red-lining. Still, I didn't quite manage a sub 24, but at 24.20 a more than respectable finish.
Official results are not yet out, but I estimate a finish this year of c.28/65 so a nice improvement over last year :)
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