First Time Trial - Crash Course in Reality

So I have been attending a few "beginner" criteriums, and have been doing pretty well in that I haven't been dropped and I usually finish somewhere in the middle.

I swam for my school in college - I think I read that a few of you did that as well, so you'd know that for a Div. I NCAA college team requires you to practice about 20 hours a week, and on top of that you'd lift weights, etc. I graduated about two years ago.

With my swimming background and recent success with criteriums, I thought that a Time Trial would be a piece of cake. I read from a few articles that you're supposed to pace yourself, while other people had said that you should feel close to throwing up through the whole race. The TT I chose was 10 miles long, and my commute to work is about 12 miles, so distance shouldn't be too much of a problem. On my commutes, my average speed's about 16 mph with hills, stops, etc. This TT is supposedly pretty flat, so I figured 18 mph average speed would get me a top 3 finish.

First someone held up my bicycle at the start, which was a little unnerving, then as he let go, I thought I was going to fall. No matter, I spun right up to 18... then it became 20... and I couldn't slow down. After 2.5 miles, I'm still holding 22mph comfortably, but 2 people have passed me by now (we're spaced 1 minute apart). At 4.5 miles I'm desperately looking around for the turn around cone. At 5 I finally find it, spin around, nearly crash, and speed back up. At 6 I had to grab a drink of water, and 3 more rides pass me with relative ease. At 8 I considered pulling off to the side and riding back home, I'm barely holding 19 mph. At 9 miles I remembered an article which mentionned you should give it all you have at the last mile, but I really didn't feel like I had anything left. At the last half kilometer, one last person passed me and I could see the finish line. And I finally finish, average speed of 21.5 mph.

I was positive no one could've gone faster, I was as pleased as punch at my average speed. I walked up to the results sheet.

Ahem. Dead last. By a good 30 seconds. The first place-er came in 5 minutes faster.

So in light of this educational experience, how was your first times? I'm wondering if I should've gone faster during my first few miles. What did you do to improve your times, (i.e. changed your warm up routine, learned from experience, etc)? What drills should I be doing to increase my speed? Do cycling teams practice time trials and how often? I obviously need all the help I can get.

Don't feel too bad - time trialing is hard and learning how to pace yourself is not easy. (I didn't talk to you in the parking lot did I? I'm the Group Health gal with the red Saturn - spoke with someone briefly who had a Cervelo / black jersey from Eastern WA)

A couple of things you can do to improve your time - in no particular order:

1. if you weren't using aerobars get some. They are the biggest thing you can do to increase your efficency in a TT - the rest of the gear is icing on the cake once you start doing well.

2. warm up throughly - the shorter the event the longer you want to warm up. I did a 45 min warm up on a trainer for this TT - a little longer even may have been better. Also when you warm up it shouldn't all be easy spinning. You want to get your heart rate up and start your muscles clearing lactic acid.

3. you may want to recalibrate your computer - by my calcuations your average speed over 10 miles was 19.74 mph so unless you went further than 10 miles you speed was a bit off.

4. figure out a system for pacing yourself. My personal method is by heart rate, but other people use cadence or other methods. I have a small range that I try to keep my hr in (coincidentally it is pretty much in line with a 90 to 100 rpm cadence as well, but yesterday was the first time I've had cadence on my computer so now I know). I've never been tested for LT(lactate threshold), but experience has taught me pretty much how high I can push my hr without completely blowing up.

5. Don't give up - your swimming experience I'm sure brings you in with a very good cardio vascular system, but it does take some time to train your body for cycling. Cycling specific training will help - doing intervals will make you faster, base miles in the winter will prepare you for next year.

Hope we'll see you around next spring (and if you are in the Seattle area you may want to check out the Women's rides http://www.wsbaracing.com/womenmtt.asp and Meet the Teams rides http://www.wsbaracing.com/meettheteams.asp that are starting up in September on Saturdays and Sundays)

Ha! Well, I know I will NEVER make it in a time trial!

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And I finally finish, average speed of 21.5 mph.

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That's faster than my bike computer will ever see for an average! Not that it matters, but you rock in my book!

Wow! Thanks for the wealth of information!

I would have never thought to warm up more - I honestly thought that I shouldn't warm up for more than 3 or 4 miles at a really easy tempo.

And you're probably right, I had just bought my computer and 19 mph is still faster than what I was planning on going anyways.

I didn't end up talking to anyone, I got there pretty late and I was spending most of the time in my car trying to keep down my breakfast - first time jitters perhaps? :confused:

I will definately go out to the Meet the Teams ride - it seems that there's more to time trials than I realized.

Hey there Sushi - awesome time! (although the average and distance dont seem to match... like Eden said, just check your speedo)

I have a 25km TT coming up this Saturday and aiming for my average to be 31-32kph at the least (thats only about 19-20mph I think?). It has a hill in the middle of it which will slow me down... and probably a head wind out but at least the tail wind back will be nice.

I concur with the importance of warming up - I do a good warm-up too before a road race or a TT - about 30 minutes.

As eden suggests, aerobars are well worth it - they raise your speed by about 1-2kph without any extra effort.

When I TT I tend to spend the first 3 kilometres just building up to my lactate threshold... then I try and ride just under it. At the last 8 or so kilometres I start to wind it up another notch riding in my lactate threshold, and the last 1-2 kms I try to go over my lactate threshold. It hurts, and my head still doesn't allow me to push my body as much as I should... but I am working on it. Ideally, at the end of a TT you should be able to say to truly gave it everything you had.

Welcome to the world of racing addiction...

Boy I'll say it was a crash course in reality for everyone! Thank you for the input and reality check. I'm facing my first 40k TT this weekend. I'll say this, I'm not fast, but I'm determined. You all have given some very sound advice that I plan to consider. I think I'm riding a Catrike so I'm not expecting really high speeds, but I would like to keep my cadance up around 100. My best speed is usually around 18-24mph. How long can I sustain that speed? I guess I'll find out on Sunday. Wish me luck girls. I raced North Manchester,IN this last weekend and tied for second place in the women's class with Jane Hunn, who is a very tallented recumbent rider. I never worked so hard in my life....nor have I ever felt better. If you've never raced, take my advice. TRY IT! Win or loose, you'll have a ball.

Hi Brecca... welcome to the board and good luck with the TT on Sunday... I have a 25km one on my Saturday which will be almost your Sunday!!!

Remember to pace yourself, settle into a rythym and don't get phased by others... its your race, you ride it.

Woohoo - two new TT victims :D . Welcome to both of you. Eden and Raven have given you some great advice, with which I will concur. Warm up is key for a TT, especially the shorter ones where you will need to have a high output the entire time.

On our 9.75 mile course, I am pretty much pegged from the time I start until I finish. Last night, after we crossed the line (DH and I were on our tandem), I literally couldn't pedal anymore. My average HR for the duration was 180 bpm, with a max of 186.

The biggest piece of advice - keep at it. You will see steady increases in your average speed each time you go out. When I first started, my speeds were in the 21 mph range, but I have progressed to now averaging 23.8 mph on my own (although we had over a 28 mph average on the tandem last night!).

Welcome to the addictive world of TT!

SheFly

p.s.
Raven and Brecca - good luck to both of you on your TTs this weekend! Please let us know how you do.

Love this info ladies. Maybe I'll convert sometime but I like reading about the speed here.

So question. How do you figure out your lactate threshold? Sounds like if I figure that out and train using that info I should be able to work on my speed. Then I can truely embrace my inner tourtoise!

Wow, freshsushi, you couldn't have written a better description of my first
TT! I still haven't gone back, but am planning to soon, so I too am thankful for the advice given in this tread.

Hi gang, well, I didn't do the 40k at the Iowa State Time Trial today but opted to cut my teeth on the 20k and I'm glad I did. The course is for the most part flat for both the 40 and 20k, although there are some slight rises in the road and a couple of banked curves. The first leg of the run was great thanks to a tail wind that felt more like 12 to 15 mph instead of the 5-10 the weather service was predicting. I managed to hit 21.6 mph on my Catrike Speed and average 18.6-7 mph, which everyone tells me is a fairly decent speed for a trike.I made the turn around with no problem, thanks to the turning ability of the Speed. It can spin on a dollar and leave you change.....and smacked head on into that aforementioned headwind that had everyone, including the strong Roadies and Recumbent riders moaning and dropping mph's like rocks. At one point, probably about with 4 miles to go in my run, I thought to myself....you know you DON'T have to do this ....and my next thought was no, I WANT to do this! And I dug in and managed to finish in 44 minutes with a personal best of 16.75 mph. up almost 1.5 mph from my average last week at North Manchester. This may not seem fast to a lot of people, but considering the fact that I am 53, just started training in March and racing in May, and ride with a history of Rheumatic Heart Disease, I ain't complaining. Every mph that I can gain on my average is hard earned and every race I finish is a success story. Was it hard? Yeah, it was brutal, but I know that from this point on it will get easier. My S.O. managed to finish the 40k in 55 minutes riding a True Grit/faired recumbent. Now THAT's an accomplishment. I can only hope to be as fast on a bike as he is. My advice is to try a time trial when you can. I came home with a medal for my efforts and a true sense of accomplishment. No matter if you finish 1st or last, you go into it pedaling your heart out....and win. I have pics from the race that will be posted. I'll put up the website addy when it is available.

Congrats, Brecca! Sounds like you had a great time, and you improved your average speed a significant amount. Those headwinds can be terribly demoralizing, but you perservered, which is fantastic!

RoadRaven - how did your TT go on Saturday?

SheFly

Pictures from my race at the Iowa State TT can be found at: http://www.veloliner.com/iowaTT06
brecca

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Originally Posted by SheFly

Congrats, Brecca! Sounds like you had a great time, and you improved your average speed a significant amount. Those headwinds can be terribly demoralizing, but you perservered, which is fantastic!

RoadRaven - how did your TT go on Saturday?

SheFly

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Alright I guess... I did win my grade (G), and would have come 11th in the next grade up, and second to last in the grade above that.

There were 17 women out of the 98 riders, I came 7th out of the women - but don't know where I would have come if it was age graded rather than ability as I don't know the ages of all the girls/women.

It was a nasty nasty day with a dreadful cross and head wind that swirled around the hillsides so despite the relatively flat course I didn't even average 30kph. Coming down the only hill I was pedalling flat out in my biggest gear and couldn't get over 40! It really sucked.

My only consolation re my time is that everyones times were slow. My eldest son and my partner would usually expect to have a 40+ average... they were both 39.something...

But did I enjoy it as a race - oh yes... I loved it. I loved it loved it loved it!

I am so obsessed and addicted its crazy!

Thanks for asking - sorry its taken a week to get back to this thread!

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Originally Posted by RoadRaven

There were 17 women out of the 98 riders, I came 7th out of the women - but don't know where I would have come if it was age graded rather than ability as I don't know the ages of all the girls/women.

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Woohoo! That is an awesome result! Top half - you should be impressed with yourself. As I mentioned to Brecca, the wind can definitely be your enemy on the TT courses. Sounds like you hung in there, though, and did well despite the breeze!

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Originally Posted by RoadRaven

But did I enjoy it as a race - oh yes... I loved it. I loved it loved it loved it!

I am so obsessed and addicted its crazy!

Thanks for asking - sorry its taken a week to get back to this thread!

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Now that's enthusiasm :D And just remember, there are many worse things to which to be addicted. I was about to put out an APB on you, so glad that you finally got back to us with your results.

I, however, have some "bad" news to share. After working so hard two weeks ago to set the tandem record on our course, our competition beat us last week by 2.2 seconds (or 0.05 mph). We were really hoping that our record would hold until next season, but it looks like we will have to get out on the beast one more time (we only have one week left) to see if we can regain the course record. Of course, Ma Nature is conspiring against us - supposed to rain here all week....

Congrats, RoadRaven - looking forward to hearing many more TT adventures this season.

SheFly