It has been a long, long (long) time since I have blogged a race report...November last year in fact.
I am still recovering from two shoulder surgeries in February and March of this year. I have been back on the bike for around six weeks but still have a long way to go. My arm movement and strength is returning, but I am still unable to put much pressure on standing up, which makes it hard for me to do any steep climbing, accelerate hard on hills, sprint or attack, making road racing a bit out of reach at the moment.
A 16 km individual time trial though, is a slightly different prospect. I was also looking for a solid effort in the thirty minute zone to have a look at my power levels. I had to race on my road bike as I am still unable to ride on my time trial bike, even with the arm pads relaxed outwards.
My cunning (and in hindsight, slightly mad) plan was to ride to the race at Kingsthorpe, do the time trial and then ride back (a touch over 200 km). A good day of endurance with a little race in the middle. My plan came slightly unstuck when the ride up turned into a headwind slog and I got nice and wet from a rainstorm at Oakey. I arrived at the start line late, tired, wet and just a little pissed off.
All in all though, it went okay. With tired, unfit and slightly chubby (I'm still at least 6 kg over race weight) legs, I managed 6th in a solid field of nine A graders, with a time of 25 minutes 35 seconds for 16 km on a very windy day with a solid hill right in the middle (which I would have loved to be able to charge up out of the seat).
I was looking for some power data from the race and I 'kinda' have that now, but I was really a little too tired from the ride up to make it really meaningful. In any case, I have a lot of work to do!
The ride home was exceptionally hard and it ended up being 215 km by the end. The time between 190 km and 210 km was a very dark place indeed!
Not sure what's up next for me in terms of racing. My arm will decide that for me. Longish term I am doing the Mooloolaba 70.3 Half Ironman in a team in twelve weeks time, so will need to sneak some races in between now and then.
It's good to have a number on my back again.
