They were starting racers 30 seconds apart -- when the racer in front of you started, you'd move up and a guy would hold your bike up so you could start clipped in (worked out great for me, but the guy dropped two different racers throughout the day....wtf?). When I first started, I heard a humming noise and thought, "Oh, god, I hope this disk cover isn't rubbing and is going to stay on!"

My plan was to start out a little conservatively as I didn't really know what power I could hold for 60+ minutes. Threshold is estimated at 193W, but I've always thought that was too high, so I figured I'd start in the Sweet Spot zone and build from there.

Once I got going, I settled into a power that felt comfortably hard; it was slightly higher than I was originally planning, but I was feeling good, so I went with it. I quickly passed the girl in front of me (like within a mile), and then passed the girl in front of her (maybe a mile later). About five miles into the race, the girl behind me passed me....and promptly slowed down. I wasn't sure if I was just getting the draft benefit or what, but my power was 10+ W lower than what I'd been holding so I decided to pass her. A few miles later, she passed me again....slowed down again, and then I passed her. Just before the turn-around, she passed me and stayed up on me for a good chunk of the way back.

Admittedly, my bike handling skills are not the greatest. I don't practice u-turns often, so it was pretty slow and kind of sloppy. It probably would have been better for me if I'd dropped it into the small chainring, but I decided against it. If I went back and did it over again, I'd try it and see how it went (will probably do so tomorrow for the TTT).

After the u-turn, I hit the lap button so I could keep track of my power on the return leg. Average power on the way out was 181W, so I wanted to stay over 180W for 9ish miles, and then bump up for the last 3.5 miles. It was starting to get easier to fall off my power targets....it wasn't that my body couldn't do it, but if I stopped paying attention at all, I'd fall off to an easier power. So I refocused myself and forced myself to hold that target.

With five miles left to go (and a renewed desire to hold my power target), I caught the one girl who had passed me and blew by her. She said "good job" and I said, "thanks, less than five miles to go, let's do it!" They had a sign set up at the 35k mark and that was my sign to throw it into a harder gear and give it all I had left. I can't wait to see the pictures from this section of the race....I had quite the grimace going on :)

I crossed the finish line feeling pretty spent. I was starting to get cold on the return leg, which is strange given that it was 82F (feels like 90+ with the humidity). When that happens, I'm usually a little dehydrated. I drank the entire bottle of water on the ride, which I really hadn't expected to do. Regardless of whether I was slightly dehydrated, it wasn't enough to impact performance and I wouldn't add another bottle or anything if I were to do it again.

I didn't hit the lap button until a while after I crossed the finish line, so my power numbers are a bit fuzzy. The 9.41 miles after the u-turn averaged 181W; the full 40k averaged 181W with 20" at 136W for the u-turn. I think the last 5k was high-180's. I suspect I probably had a couple more watts in me, but I don't think the 193W estimated FTP is quite within my grasp.

The humming noise from the start of the race?? Turns out my rear brake was dragging just a little bit -- almost certainly not enough to actually impact my speed (definitely did not impact my power as that's independent of speed), but I should get that serviced as it's had the tendency to do that since St. George.

Also, I should probably commit to working on bike handling skills, like u-turns.

Altogether, I'm pretty happy with this. I was 48 seconds off first place in Women's Cat 4 -- not too shabby for a (non-tapered) triathlete against a bunch of single sporters :)

Continued riding past the finish line at like 20W until I could breathe again....turned around and headed back toward the finish line and saw the girl I played leap frog with. I stopped and congratulated her -- told her she was a hell of a rider and thanked her for being my motivation.


My training is not geared toward 40k TT's at the moment -- working toward a 70.3 in a couple weeks, so holding threshold power for an hour is not something I've been focusing on. Also, I went into this race un-tapered (this is one of my heaviest weeks in the build) and knew I needed to run later in the day (though I don't think I even thought of that while racing).


NWCC put on this race and I was quite unimpressed. Everything was unorganized. When I got there, there were no port-a-potties or anything, and when I asked, the volunteer told me I should go back to the McDonalds in town as the port-a-potties had not yet arrived.

After the race, it took THREE (yes, three) hours to post results....and not even all the results. I don't know if I'm just spoiled with chip-timed events (especially WTC events where results are practically live), but this was ridiculous. In fact, at 2.5 hours after I'd finished, they posted the Cat 4 results, but they were actually just the starting order with no times or anything. By that point, I'd already committed so much time that I figured I should wait till the actual results got posted....which took another 30 minutes. At that point, they'd posted the Juniors' results, Masters Women's results, and Women Cat 3 / 4 results....no one else.

Oh, and the 60+ Men were one of the first 40k groups to start (probably the first), and they didn't have a volunteer or cones or anything at the turn-around, so they blew right past there and eventually realized they'd gone too far. The organizer then had them race a second time at like 11am (when it was hot and they'd probably already blown their legs out). WTF? Again with being unorganized....

Really not impressed with NWCC. I would not do another one of their races....except the fact that I'm already registered for tomorrow's TTT, but I've already let my teammates know that I won't be sticking around for three hours to see results -- I've got a mid-length run to do after and don't need to be out there for so long.