Well I decided to do my first 40km solo TT in over 2 years and debut my new skinsuit and sperm (aero) helmet.
Having done only a handfull of Atta events I had no doubt it would all be smooth on raceday so got the bike sorted the night prior with all the required goods.

Once out there sign on was a breeze, grabbed my transponder and numbers and went back to set the bike on the wind trainer for my warm up. The weather had allready decided to warm up but that meant the flys were obsolutly everywhere, talked about getting annoyed trying to warm up! I tried to stay friendly to them hoping they would help carry me along at somepoint on the hilly TT course.

Once warmup done and race wheels in, last nervous wee done 🙂 Jody took some pics and I headed up to the start. The bike was all fine all gears working and me not actualy feeling too bad considering the 100km done the day prior.

Goal was simple, have a negative split and get as close to 40 kmphr ave as possible on what I thought was undulating course. Well I knew teh first 10km but wasnt sure about the next before heading to the turnaround but I was off. I quickly settled in to my comfortable heartrate. Passing back through where the cars where Jody took a snap (later to find out it was of a tree, teach me to drag her out too early on a sunday morning:)) After a few kms the hills start and I was pretty motivated for a 40 ave so was finding myself smashing the 54 X 11 down the hills at upwards of 55-60 and not finding the uphills too bad I pushed hard over and by 10 or so kms had allready picked up quite a few people and looking at my speedo the average was 42 kms. I did think maybe I should back off a smidge but felt strong so pushed on. Once at the turn around Frans and the guys gave heaps of encouragement and we were back into it but looking at my speedo I had turned at 30mins 40secs with a 39.9 kms ave, the last 10kms were a little hillier than I thought but was still happy to be within a sniff of 40!

Once back up to speed the legs were starting to get heavy on teh climbs and I found my ave falling back closer to 38 but still tried to climb as smoothly as possible as I knew thats where the time was going to be made up to get me back to 40 ave.

I started to come good again and was wishing I brought another gel with me but kept on sipping away. Remembering the big hill with 3km to go was going to hurt I pushed as hard as I dared but managed to get my ave back up near 39.5 but then as I started on teh climb I found myself going back through the gears rather to quickly with the top not seeming to want to come any quicker. I pushed hard and with the heartrate climbing into the mid 190’s I knew that was as fast I could go.

I finally got over it and caught my breath as much as I could but still finding the heartrate at 190 I pushed as hard as I could for the remaining kms. As I approached the finish line I snuck at look at the Garmin and saw my Heart rate at 197 and ave at 38.6 and a time of 1.02.

On warming down I was pretty hapy happy with my effort but was feeling very smashed. I got back to the ute to find Jody sound asleep 🙂 haha talk about me at my max for the last hour and her at her minimum hehe. Caught up with the girls and some of the other folk i knew and saw Anna K had beaten the course record and then saw Bec had smashed it by 2 mins so teh girls are firing! Nicole was happy with a great hitout so all in all a good day debuting the skinsuit and new helmet.. Now to find out how to knock off a few minutes for the next one 🙂 Knowing that my PB from 3 years ago is 57min all be it on a flat course Im keen to do better next time.

Oh and chuck/Pete your info is right the sperm helmet is nosiy but thats the price of looking fast hey ??:)
Oh and the negative split didnt happen but hey you get that 🙂
Actual Garmin stats were 1.02.40 time, 38.66 ave, ave H/R 181 and max H/R 199.Max speed 63.97 and 1446 cal used.