Bryce Master 19K TT
July 31, 2010 – Harvard, IL
Masters 30+ – 4th – 26:57.95
283 watts – 26.2 MPH

The Bryce Master TT is always a complete shock to the system after a couple months of 30K-50K TTs. It used to be a 30K race itself, but was shortened to just 19K a couple of years ago. Wow. Does it ever feel weird having to rev up the pace after you’ve been so focused on pacing for longer distances.

Interestingly, my training lately had prepped me for these shorter efforts. I was looking at this race optimistically, but knew my legs would be tired after a long week of training. Well, I ended up being more tired than my legs. I couldn’t sleep well on Friday night and neither could Rose. We got up early and barely made it to the race before our start times. We opted to get later start times, but were both sluggish. I was going to do two runs, but decided to just do one instead. Plus, it was sprinkling and fairly humid BUT BARELY ANY WIND!!!

I was still excited to have a short race with a lack of wind  and was adamant about focusing on my power values to ensure I was going push it harder than I would in a 40K TT.  Yep, everything went according to plan, but I fell victim to a “rookie” mistake. Turns out my race # was flapping in the wind, which pretty much killed an “aero” advantage I got from my “aero” gear. Oh, well, I was happy with my higher power output and knew my average speed would have been higher had I been more careful with my pinning. Plus, this race was on  the Harvard TT course, which got me more excited for the state championships in a couple of months.

BTW, races like this separate those who are good at shorter distances vs longer distances vs those who are good at no matter what they do. After a few years of TTs, I’ve realized that I’m in the middle group and still have much to master about these shorter races…:)