OCS Time Trial Race Report – June 2008

I did the Orange County Speedway cycling time trial again this month. If you live anywhere near Raleigh or Durham, NC, you really have to do this race! It’s so fun, and a great way to gauge your bike fitness.

I have not done any speedwork on the bike since last month’s TT – only hill work in preparation for Over the Mountain. I did buy an aero helment, and fiddled with my aero position on the bike. My goal was to see if I could beat last month’s time on aerodynamics alone. However, the weather forecast of 94 degrees with a heat index of 97 was throwing a big monkey wrench into my plan…so how could I fix that?

Sindballe’s strategy got me thinking to use ice to cool my body during the time trial. I spent some time during the afternoon trying on different tops and stuffing ice down my bra. Then I’d get on the trainer and see how it felt riding that way, and sit out on the deck in the sun to see how long it took to melt. I finally settled on my purple aerobics top which has a fairly tight bra built into it. I also took a flexible blue ice pack I used for an injured knee and stuffed it into the back of my shorts.

Click photos to enlarge:

Thinking about it later, it dawned on me that I had provided cooling near my heart and kidneys – both of which pass blood through them. Seems like a great way to keep your core nice and cool! This idea worked perfectly, tho I’m sure I looked like a total triathlon nerd!

Once at the race, I put some ice down my bra and warmed up for four laps. I wanted to make sure everything felt as good as it did when I tested the idea at home. (I did not use the blue ice pack for the warmup, as I wanted to keep it in the cooler until the last moment). After warming up, and doing a few 30 second accelerations, I refreshed the ice in my bra and put the ice pack in the back of my shorts and started the race.

I kept cool for a good ten minutes, which is about half the race…the best part was that the melting ice dripped down from my bra and created a nice cooling spray for my legs.

Now onto the details of the race:

I had written my prior race time on my hand, along with the number of laps. When I’m going hard, I can’t remember things, so this way, all I had to do was glance down at my hand.

I set my cateye computer to display distance in the lower half of the screen, and speed in the upper half. I knew I had to maintain a speed of 21mph or better to get a PR at this race. Every so often I’d check my speed. Things were going well.

As I approached the 4 mile mark (half way), I checked my stop watch to make sure it said less than 11:14. It said 10:55. So far so good. But the ice had melted and the cooling affects were wearing off, so I was starting to feel a little hot. I kept up a hard pace anyway.

There were only a few other cyclists on the track with me. At one point a guy passed me. As soon as he pulled in front of me riding felt alot easier. I figured it was because I was in his draft zone. I followed him for about a half lap enjoying the rest. Then I checked my speed and we were only going 20. I wanted to be going 21, and anyway, drafting would mess up my comparison data (and it’s probably cheating in a time trial). So… I tried to pass him but had difficulty, so pulled back. Then I heard another guy speeding up behind the two of us. As he passed, I pulled behind him hoping to get the benefit of his draft during the pass. It didn’t work too well because he was just going way way too fast! So, I was on my own to really push hard to pass the first guy. I did it tho, and he never passed me back. He may have finished and pulled off the track, tho, I’m not sure.

When my distance registered 7.75 miles, I knew I was in the last lap. I looked at my stopwatch and it was 21 something. I went all out to the end trying to beat the prior time of 22:28. My final time was 22:08, so I did get a PR at this race despite the heat. AND – my average heart rate was lower this time! See data at end of article.

When I pulled off the track, I didn’t feel wiped out…actually felt I could have ridden another 8 miles. I felt a little hot, but not burning up. It was a hard effort to do that last lap, but not so hard that I was faltering to get off my bike like Scott at last month’s TT. I wondered why I hadn’t pushed harder, sooner.

Two other cyclists had just finished: they were burning up and dumping water over their heads, so I was truly the ‘coolest’ cyclist on the track – despite my nerdiness 🙂

Here’s a screen capture of some video I took. I forgot to set my camera for high speed mode, so it’s not terribly useful, tho it sure makes me look FAST! And, at least you can see that my arms are horizontal: that’s one of the things I corrected when adjusting my aero position.

Here’s the data: no speed workouts between these, just change in aerodynamics

date              time       HR (av/max)    weather
13-May-08     22:28.1   169/171   68 deg / 36 %
10-Jun-08      22:08      166/171   93 deg / 38 %