This morning I hit the boards again...feels like a home from home now....for another attempt at a dress rehearsal in an effort to erase the last week's disaster from my memory.
Last week I was tired from sleeping poorly in all that crap weather. I also found I didn't like the method of keeping me on pace at all. I'd borrowed a chart which gives you seconds and tenth's of a second in bold print. However what I discovered was that having to read something every lap disturbed my concentration and so led to ..well...a disaster.
Today we used the "walk the line method" and this proved to be 100% better. So I did 3 efforts with a minor recovery between for re-hydrating and, as it turned out, letting others have a turn on the track (I was s'posed to be solo on the track but a communication break down meant that I had company...actually it worked out ok and saved me $$$$$$.).
Pacing is 1000% vital and this was what I needed to nail today and did:
- With "the hour" the urge to ride as you feel has to be well and truly resisted in the first 20 minutes, which is a period when the effort should be marginal...your yells of support are heard and are very welcome.
- The second 20 minutes takes forever to go by and the effort starts to feel very hard..I can still tell what's being said but am beginning to slide into the state described below.
- The final 20 minutes is a lifetime long and is incredibly hard... can't hear, can't react, are in a very bad place , a"world of pain" and it is this part of the hour when your encouragement is supremely vital.
If you're reading this and live in Melbourne..please come along and yell your support. The canteen will be open so you can wet your whistle and carb load for the long haul!.
I've been asked what I think about while churning out the laps...the answer is...nothing except keeping up the speed and cadence....any deviation into "thinking about something" causes me to drop off the pace.
11 days 22 hours to go
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