Perrshoot !

Trial & Error

On Tuesday I had an ordinary day, not being able to complete my set intervals. Then yesterday morning I was not feeling too good, postponed my ride to the afternoon, only to get slight stomache cramps, so I figured my body was telling me something and I ended up with a no ride day (shock, horror !!).

So that left me with this evening's scheduled trial pursuit run and general track racing. Idea is to set a benchmark and see how I'm going.

This week, one of the local clubs started up a regular Thursday night track racing series at Tempe velodrome (which is only a 10-12 minute drive from my place), so they kindly let me start warming up early so I could do my pursuit effort with a clear track before racing commenced.

Windy

Tempe is an outdoor 333.33 metre concrete velodrome. A bit bumpy but in reasonably nick - some surface refurbishments were undertaken last Sep/Oct which smoothed out some of the bigger bumps. Conditions, while warm, were not ideal as it was quite windy - not something I'm used to as most of my pursuits have been conducted inside covered velodromes. The headwind was particularly bad in turn 2 and down the back straight and into turn 3. You didn't notice any assistance until well out of turn 4 and about half way down finishing straight.

Anyway, here's the wko of my effort (click/right click to view larger image):

Trial Pursuit 11 Jan 2007

Times as per stopwatch were:
1 km: 1:20.04
2 km: 2:36.50 (1:16.46)
3 km: 3:54.38 (1:17.48)

Gear:________ 52x15 (93.6" nominal)
Avg Power: __ 365 Watts
Avg Speed: __ 46.9 kph
Avg Cadence:_ 108 rpm
CTL:_________ 93
TSB:_________ +6
(Given unscheduled breaks this week, I was not originally expecting to be TSB positive)

So judging by all that, I'd say my pacing was pretty good considering the conditions. I didn't watch the power meter that much, just the occasional glance, preferring to go by feel. Certainly the jagged speed line shows the impact of the wind - typically it's a much smoother, more "sinusoidal" type of line.

One good sign is it's a faster time than I rode at the State/National championships last year.

I then backed up OK for the rest of the night's racing, riding A grade and picking up a 2nd in opening scratch race and 3rd in the elimination and basically attacking the other races hard(ish). Max speed of 63.8kph was fairly respectable too.

SBS Television were out there filming, so I might even make it onto TV this week! Cycling Central on SBS 5.30pm Sunday afternoon.