Jackpot

Joseph Vinciquerra | March 9th, 2006 | Posted in Training | 11 Comments »

Mission Accomplished

Okay, so some of you who like to get hung up on the numbers the way I do may remember this post where I detailed my last regular LT Power test on the bike back in January. Yup, the last time I did an LT test was before Base 2, and it was during that particular test that I disclosed one of my off-season goals of cracking 300W average over the 20 minute TT. The result from my last test, as you may recall, was 295W. Definitely a good number, but I wanted those 5 watts like you wouldn’t believe.

Fast forward.

Tonight I mounted up, cranked the music and found my right headspace while warming up. I started in with a solid cadence and some good spin-ups before hitting the red lap (detonate) button on my HRM. The digits clicked over to 00:00:01 and so began one of the strongest TTs I’ve done in a while. Within the first 3 minutes I was turning that perfect gear; not to easy, causing too high a cadence, but just a little too hard. Could I maintain this? At 4 minutes, the lights dimmed and flickered all around me. Tunnel vision already? No, actually, the fluorescent lights in my workout area were literally flickering… That was a relief (and a mentally noted fix-it item for the weekend).

Ten minutes was the halfway point, and through the burning I felt the strength of all the base I’ve been doing. Surviving mentally from 12-17 minutes is always the biggest challenge for me, but today seemed to tick by okay. At 17 minutes I upped my cadence 3 rpm. Yeah, 3 little rpm. From 79 to 82, actually, and held that until 19 minutes, where I upped it again by 2 rpm to 85. Internally, I visualized all those hot summer Tuesdays in Syracuse with the OCC out on Caughdenoy Road where I’d turn in TTs with the best of them. I remember that feeling of hitting that last mile mark and leaving it all out there. My legs literally bursting with lactic acid. An unquenchable thirst to simply relent for the briefest of moments. Tonight. Finally, 00:19:59.

Tick. Average Power: 336W.