Robert Cameron Law Cycling Series Ft. BC Road Champs and Bastion Square GP

             Part I: Rumble Time Trial

Viclandia once again proved to be an excellent place to ride/race bikes. It all kicked off Friday evening with the Rumble Time Trial a short 5km race against the clock. Traditionally TT's and even more specifically short TT's are my "jam", but I wasn't putting much pressure on myself going into Fridays race, with my main objectives being Saturday and Sunday. With that said I took a pretty relaxed approach to my preparation for the TT. I was using a team turbo trainer to warm up on before that start and due to close start times and only 3 trainers I only got in about 15 mins on the trainer. It was not ideal but I was in a pretty relaxed mood so I didn't stress it too much. Turns out I was a little too relaxed as I showed up at the start ramp about 35seconds before my start. Which you could say is perfect timing or actually pretty bad timing. I got away with one this time, I got underway without any problems. Once underway I was confronted with another out of the norm situation. I was doing the TT completely "blind". I don't mean blind in the literal sense I mean "blind" in the sense I did not even put my Garmin (cycling computer) on my TT bike. You might be thinking "so what", and you have a point. But we cyclists have gotten quite technical in the way we gauge our efforts especially in time trials. We base our efforts not on perceived effort but on the actual amount of power we are producing which is measured by a Power Meter of some sort. I used a crank based meter that basically measures how hard I am pedalling and then that number is displayed on my Garmin so I know exactly how hard I am going. This can be very usefully especially when you are trying to pace a long TT. This TT however is not very long so there is not quite the same amount of pacing needed as you are basicly just going as hard as you can for six and a half minutes. I did however have a plan of where I was going to go the hardest and where I would ease off a little. Without going into too much detail I didn't push too hard for the first quarter of the race, the middle half I knew I had to leave it all out there and then the last quarter is just adrenaline, seeing stars, and just keeping your speed high. I wasn't sure how it had gone because without my Garmin I had no idea what my time was. It had felt pretty good (and by good I mean it hurt in a good way) but that could mean I just didn't push hard enough. Turns out it felt good because I have some good form right now, and I had actually put down a pretty good time. Good enough for second, which I was happy with because I didn't really have any expectations going into it. But it also reminded me that you should always race to win, because if you don't you most likely won't. I gave 100% during the race but not in my preparation. If I had gone into it focused on trying to win I think I would have increased my chances by a lot. I wasn't as focused as I should have been because it wasn't a real big priority race but every chance you get to practice trying to win a race and actually winning is extremely valuable.  So thats what I took away from TT.