Great write up
@Norry1
I guess I ought to add a little to give the perspective from the back of the race and to offer
@Whorty a possible glimpse of what his near future could be
Firstly, I had a better start out of the pen. I've said many times recently it's been a problem and while I still had a little chasing on to do last night, the gap was smaller, I had less to chase and it took less out of me. PBs out of the pen and averaging 312w for the first km is all going in the right direction.
So, I found myself well up in the front pack on the first lap, holding my place all through the flat part of the course, over the bridge and through the cobbled section and felt I was well placed about mid pack going into the Legsnapper.
Then, as Martin said, the Legsnapper made the first selection, and I'm afraid I didn't quite make it. But this time it wasn't through a lack of application. Another PB for me at 1.11, max watts of 414 but may average watts of 329 show that I just couldn't hold it all the way to the top and the gap that opened there took me out of the race. After that, it was always a race just to try and finish as high as I could.
@Brusgaard had been dropped with me. He was a few seconds back behind me at the top, but he chased back on and we formed a group of 3 with another guy, Dave Ellison, that stayed together for the next 3 laps. Steen and I did pretty much all the work with Ellison pretty much along for the ride. Every time up the Legsnapper, he jumped and pulled away. The first two times, Steen and I reeled him back in on the descent, but the last time round he put in a major kick. I went after him, but I didn't have enough and that opened a gap between myself and Steen and that remained the case for the three of us until the line.
So, what can I take from yesterday. Well some things are getting better, but its the same weaknesses that I'm paying for. I've said several times I need to find a way of increasing my short term power, 15s, 30s and 1m. My starts are improving, and I had another PB on the Legsnapper, but a 10 second gap by the top turned into 2 to 3 minutes by the end of yesterday's race.
Doing the TTT races has seen my FTP rise twice in the last 2 weeks to 256w and my figures for 95% of 20 minutes on ZP are now 3.41w/kg, so I'm sitting comfortably inside Cat B. Last Saturday I managed to finish just inside the top half of a B cat race for the first time, when I rode in the WTRL iTT. All this is positive stuff and was reflected in the way I held my place to the bottom of the Legsnapper on lap 1.
It was the same story last Friday for the Cyclechat TTT. I did plenty of work in the B team and was there until we hit the 2nd steeper KoM. I thought I'd probably struggle there, and so it proved.
I haven't really looked hard enough to find workouts that I can use to try and increase my short term power, and I suppose in the back of my mind I'm wondering if its possible for a guy in his 60s to actually take that next step? I don't expect to have the snap in my legs that I'd have had in my 20s and 30s, but I'm happy to try as I just need to improve enough to close the gaps that took me out yesterday. I've said on here before I used to ride with a guy who was the 70s age group national road race and TT champion, and he was a machine, so I hope I still have time!
Anyhow, 45th out of 51 on ZP, so a small contribution to our position in the Team Standings!