Frankenorange
Orange 🍊 Fan
Back in the 80's the answer to any question about what you should do , to improve your TT (or any cycling thing for that matter!!), was met with the usual stuff about doing more miles.
It was like the default solution offered by older club members to any issue. If you can't maintain the speed you need to do more miles. If you can't grind up the hills you need to do more miles. That rash on your pecker...you need to do more miles.
Now it isn't like that and i hope the young guns are getting much better advice than i(we) did. Something i really should have practiced more was the transition from starting effort into pace effort. I thought it was just another thing i had to do more miles for, but looking back i could've trained my body to deal with that transition better.
I was wary of going out of the blocks too fast, but no matter what i tried i would get about a mile down the road, get out of puff with stupidly heavy legs and have no power for about 2 miles, then mind and body started to settle down and i got into my groove. I think it was a mix of lack of practice/skill/teaching and general/performance anxiety. My heart rate was way too high before i had even got under way and i was definitely not breathing down into my diaphragm, for examples of anxiety.
This was crippling my times over ten miles and why i never got under 22 mins. If i could've nailed that transition then i might have been able to do a long 20, on a float day, and absolutely would have got those seconds off that were keeping me out of the 21's.
I think that is a specific thing for you to practice, Mike, to find out what happens after a strong standing start and have got yourself on top of the big gear. Is that it and you are in the groove? Do you die a death and have to wait for legs and lungs? How long is that wait? etc
It will be a shame to be able to hold a good aero position and a strong pace yet burn a whole bunch of time getting your sh!t together, during that transition, if you happen to suffer as i did.
Oh and If you do find it is a problem then you need to do more miles.
It was like the default solution offered by older club members to any issue. If you can't maintain the speed you need to do more miles. If you can't grind up the hills you need to do more miles. That rash on your pecker...you need to do more miles.
Now it isn't like that and i hope the young guns are getting much better advice than i(we) did. Something i really should have practiced more was the transition from starting effort into pace effort. I thought it was just another thing i had to do more miles for, but looking back i could've trained my body to deal with that transition better.
I was wary of going out of the blocks too fast, but no matter what i tried i would get about a mile down the road, get out of puff with stupidly heavy legs and have no power for about 2 miles, then mind and body started to settle down and i got into my groove. I think it was a mix of lack of practice/skill/teaching and general/performance anxiety. My heart rate was way too high before i had even got under way and i was definitely not breathing down into my diaphragm, for examples of anxiety.
This was crippling my times over ten miles and why i never got under 22 mins. If i could've nailed that transition then i might have been able to do a long 20, on a float day, and absolutely would have got those seconds off that were keeping me out of the 21's.
I think that is a specific thing for you to practice, Mike, to find out what happens after a strong standing start and have got yourself on top of the big gear. Is that it and you are in the groove? Do you die a death and have to wait for legs and lungs? How long is that wait? etc
It will be a shame to be able to hold a good aero position and a strong pace yet burn a whole bunch of time getting your sh!t together, during that transition, if you happen to suffer as i did.
Oh and If you do find it is a problem then you need to do more miles.
