Hour record time!

So this is the final entry (for my hour story), I am going to cut to the chase and say that the day went well and i followed my schedule.  After 1 hour of riding I added about 200 meters to the current US 40-44 1 hour record, a total estimated distance of 45.8 kilometers (takes a few weeks to get the official distance apparently).

They day started off well, i actually was pretty relaxed and got up and took my Boy down to the track to do a 500 meter TT at the track, as they had a TT series event going on (pretty aero 11 year old eh?).

Once that was wrapped up i came home and went for a 1 1/2 hour ride down on the bike path, time to start getting the body warmed up and the blood circulating.   I had a quick meal and some water, lots of water as a matter of fact.  Then I loaded up my junk and headed to the track, i was making an effort not to get there to early, really just enough time to chat with the officials, Roger and do a warm up.

One of the first things to take care of was the final prep of the bike, that of course required my buddy Jon to help inflate the tires to 215 PSI.

I did about 30 minutes on the rollers to keep the body warm, then i suited up and hoped on the track for a final 5 minute build and another 5 minutes at race speed, riding against my interval timer.

To be honest i was not really feel “on it” during my 5 minute run at race speed. But i knew that even if i had an average day, i had enough training in me to get the job done and that gave me the confidence to get on with it.

This was the pose for the next 60 minutes, head down and ride the pace. It took an entire 3 minutes until i started to hurt, i knew this was not going to be an “easy” one.  Some days you are just on it and the hurt feel good and you fly, this day i was “ok” and not “super”.

I was super happy to have all my club mates out supporting my effort, had over 100 people show up!

This was to celebrate my 40th birthday, so the vibe was pretty fun and not to serious (except for the guy riding in circles the entire time).

Every one is having fun, but I think my wife could tell i was doing some suffering, seems to have a bit of concern on her face.

I held my pace solid for 40 minutes, then tried to roll ahead a bit. I only got about 50 meters up on my schedule and had to level off. I was able to up the pace the last 3 minutes an pick up a few more meters.

Once the hour ends, the real pain sets in and the next few minutes really hurt.

My face was a bit flushed after the effort.

I need a few minutes to just chill out and come around.

So the ride was pretty boring, exactly how you want an hour to go. I did have some real issues with navigating the sponges, in retrospect i guess i should have done some training withe sponges out. But overall, the hour went off exactly to plan.

Coach and rider satisfied with the ride. Having an experienced coach to prep and manage you for an hour is a must, i can’t imagine how some guys try and go it alone.

2 x world hour record holder KK came out to support my effort, i have to say it was a real benefit being able to get advice from a guy that has actually done this 2 times before.

I wish i could put down some real cool data in this post, but unfortunately i took the speed sensor off my bike for the hour, it seems to have enough data drops in it that it did not seem worth leaving it on and taking the small aero loss. I have also found that my ant+ HR strap has issues getting it’s signal to my Garmin when it is mounted under my seat, so i went without that. I did record my power output though, but of course my Quarq was acting a bit wonky on the day and calibrating about 100 points higher than it usually does, tried it 3 times and could not get it to settle down, I just had to take what i could get.

At the end of the day i took some good advice from Roger. “You are just going to have to ride the schedule, that’s it. You will just have to force your body to do it”. As much as i love the data, at the end of the day i needed to ride my bike a certain distance over a certain time, it did not make any difference what my HR or power was, i had to get it done.

Of course we had some post hour beer to celebrate!

I have to thank my family for all the support with this, Roger Young, KK, Walsh, all my training partners for putting up with me, Mark for being a great MC, FFWD Wheels & Ceramic Speed, Dr Phil, Dr Steve, my ironfly club mates and friends that came out to cheer me on and Kristy Morrow and Greg St Johns for taking a TON of great photos!