Have fun. I have yet to do a TT, so I'm jealous.

"ride like you stole it"

don't you have work?
think of that and have fun. i'm stuck here in front of a computer and two devices that aren't F-beep-ing working!

Eastern Daylight Time. The first rider goes off at 6:30pm.

Who can think about work when there's a race coming up in 3 hours???

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Yes, I too now have a Blog. Don't laugh.

Warm up completely beforehand on a trainer.

Ride with your hands on the hoods with your forearms parallel to the ground.

The whole time, just think "ride faster".

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Swimming Workout of the Day:

Favourite Swim Sets:

2020 National Masters Champion - M50-54 - 50m Butterfly

since you're not working, why not register and read some articles here: http://socalttseries.com/Training/Articles/tabid/94/Default.aspx
(www.timetrial.org) I forget who used to post with a GIANT signture with that site...

Can you more precisely define "completely"?? I had planned on spinning easily for about 15 minutes, possibly 1 loop of the course... I've found that about 10 minutes is the point where my knees are properly lubed up and ready to go...

Too much more than that and I won't have much left for the TT. I'm not in all that great a shape...

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Yes, I too now have a Blog. Don't laugh.

read up on proper pacing
tape your helmet
hydrate
warm up properly
don't go out too hard

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Josef
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blog

You still have 2 hours to go buy an aerohelmet, time trial bike, get fitted, and buy some time trial clothing, disc wheel, and deep front wheel.

15-20 minute warm up is plenty. spend about 5 minutes in a harder gear and get your heart rate up. The other 10-15 minutes should be easy spinning just to keep yourself loose.



Don't kill your self at the start. Get up to speed as smoothely as possible. Just tickle the red line without burying yourself. Be as focused on putting power into each pedal stroke as possible. rather than think about intermediate times or with covering certain sections, just keep thinking about each pedal stroke. It may seem silly, but if you aren't thinking about pedaling, your mind can wander all over the place.

Your last few Kilometers should be grueling. Go all out. If in the last kilometer your feel like you are losing power, you rode correctly. If you feel like you can get out of the saddle and sprint, you've gone too easy the previous 19k.

Too much more than that and I won't have much left for the TT. I'm not in all that great a shape...

Then resist the urge to blow it all on the first loop...start out strong, pick up the pace on loop 2 and then let it all hang out on the last loop. Finish strong.

You will hurt at some point. Push past it, resist the urge to slow it down. Embrace the pain....it means you're riding hard.

Make sure you get four to five 30 sec bursts in during your warm up. Lets your body know whats coming so to speak. My overall warmup is typically 30 minutes of spinning with the burst in the middle somewhere. Enough so that I have a good sweat before I start. The first race I did, I performed a five minute warmup and didnt feel strong until 3 miles into the 14 mile TT.

Cool!

Umm... can I borrow your credit card?

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Yes, I too now have a Blog. Don't laugh.

Warm up with some hard effort brusts to get your lactic acid buffering system going. Then just line-up and blast it the whole way, no pacing for 20K.

Dave in VA

"charge it like Visa"

Kurt

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http://www.pbmcoaching.com
USA Triathlon Level 3 Elite Coach
USA Cycling Level 1 Elite Coach

Whoa! For a second there I thought your post was saying that you DID your first 20K TT in a total time of 3 hours. I was thinking, "Man, I don't think I'd be braggin' about biking at 4.1 mph, and not even running that slow here on the ST."

1st lap - go 70% effort (you'll underestimate, so it'll probably be closer to 90% - unless you have a power meter and in that case you'll know for sure).
2nd lap - go 90% effort
3rd lap - go 100% effort

Biggest problem is going too hard at the start.

Pacing is critical in a 3k pursuit. I'm guessing you don't actually do any TT's if you think there is no pacing involved in a ~25+ minute effort...

Scott

OK, listen to me....and ignore these other crazy posts!

Here's my one useful bit of advice: DON'T WARM UP!! AT ALL!

Ride from your car to the start line. I do this for every TT over 10K. All of this gibberish about "you have to do this/that/the other thing is just that--gibberish".

You don't have much time until your start, so I'll spare you the boring links to Pub Med--but suffice to say, warming up is of no use for an event over 7-10 minutes.

Not warming up, on the other hand, almost ensures that you'll not start off too hard--which is the biggest mistake you can make. Treat the first 5 minutes of the race as your "warm up".

Warming up is for chumps.

Take my advice.

Hold back for the first 5 minutes, then go for it!

Aim to be so spent at the end that you can't even unclip your foot from the pedals. Hope someone catches you.

-C

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Any run that doesn't include pooping in someone's front yard is a win.

Yowza!!! I finished it! And I WASN'T LAST!!

The start line was a bit farther from home than I thought, so by the time I got on my bike I had about 10 minutes to start off. They put me first, because I was the first guy to sign up for the 3-lap race.

Thanks to everyone for your advice. I especially appreciate the advice to stay on the hoods with my forearms horizontal. That really helped to keep my shoulders relaxed while staying somewhat low. Also the advice to focus on my pedal stroke helped a lot as well. It kept me from slacking off.

So, no warmup, except about 5 minutes of tooling around. I also forgot my bike computer, so no feedback on speed or cadence. Only occasional glances at my watch (on my wrist) for HR... other than that, I rode totally by feel.

Result:
3 loops @ 4.22mi/loop = 12.66mi (20.25km)
Time: 43:25
Av. Speed: 17.5mph
Splits: 14:12 (161av/169max bpm), 14:39 (164av/167max bpm), 14:36 (165av/172max bpm)

Here's a link to the route:
http://www.toporoute.com/cgi-bin/getSavedRoute.cgi?routeKey=VRODRKPTIGAHGIU

Merely a stroll about the horse farms for most of you folks, but the ride of my life so far. Several of the guys did the 4-lap version faster than my 3-lap time. They were blowing by me like I was backing up. It was actually pretty cool. I saw a Trek Equinox, a Nishiki with what must have been a 24" front wheel and a 700c disc rear, a Specialized Transition that paint-matched my Allez (red!), and a couple other nice tri or TT bikes that I can't specifically recall.

In short, a really fun ride, and I can't wait to do it again... faster!

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Yes, I too now have a Blog. Don't laugh.

Nice job. Now wasn't that FUN! I Love TT's!

Dave in VA