Icebreaker Time Trial

Dave Acheson

Auburn WA

3-3-12

My training has been in full swing for a while now and with Daylight Savings Time finally here, I’m getting in a significant volume of riding.  This is good as the racing season is fast approaching.  Those sentences are true and seem pretty reasonable.  However, the quirk this year is that I did my first race three weeks ago.  The Icebreaker Time Trial in Auburn was the first event in a new five race time trial series this year and came early enough that I had nearly zero training for it.  As it was part of the series I am planning on doing though, I felt it was worth going to and seeing if I could score any points at all.  It was held on a dead flat 10 mile long course which was a plus for someone just climbing off the couch.  I had hoped to be under 25 minutes for the race but turned in a time of 25:13 which was good enough for 11^th of 20 racers in my group.  Not what I hoped for, but let’s face it, hope is all I had, nothing useful like training!  It was a good enough result for the start of the season and I scored some points for the series so the only way from here must be up.  The next race is mid-April and I know I’ll be better prepared for that.

Karla Segale

I wouldn’t trade living in the Methow for anything, but as a cyclist, you just have the face the fact that early season training here means logging endless hours on the trainer or attending the occasional spin class.  This is made all the more annoying when your friends seem bent on telling you that the skiing is “the best it’s been all year and they’ll probably be grooming through July and why on earth would you want to be droning endlessly on a trainer when you could be outside loving life?”

Add to this the fact that the “Wet-Siders” have been on their bikes all winter long slugging it out with the traffic and pelting rainstorms, perfecting the art of suffering. And make no mistake.  Time trials are all about suffering.  Getting a jump on the season doesn’t make you suffer less, it just makes you go faster.  

So with three solid weeks on the trainer to my credit—and a few spin classes tossed in for good measure—I set out for the Icebreaker Time Trial—the first of new series this year dedicated to time trials.

I spin 20 minutes on the trainer, and set out for a few sprints on the warm up course.  I roll up to the starting queue to find Dave waving his hands at me and a less than perky look on his face.  “Get up to the line, Karla.”  “You’re next” he growls. “You almost missed your start time.”  Oops.

“Five, four, three, two, one” GO!”  I settle into my drops, and stay there.  I peg my heart rate monitor at threshold for the trip out, and push a few beats over on the return.   The course is a flat out and back, with a cross wind.  My goal is to break a half hour, which would be a good time for me considering my training deficit.

I hit the turnaround, and edge my heart rate over threshold.  I pick it up again in another five minutes, and twice more after two more five minute intervals until I am at redline at the finish.  I cross the finish at 28:59:3, knowing I gave what I had to give for the first time trial of the season.  

When the results comes in, I learn that I  picked up 4th in my category,  missing 3rd place by 4 seconds and 2nd place by 24 seconds.

I have my work cut out for me, but this race tells me what I need to know.  The podium is within reach this year, and I am going to get there.