Disappointing ride at today's NRC 10 on the H10/17r. I wasn't really planning on doing this race but I got talked into throwing an entry in a couple of weeks ago, and today was too busy to fit my long ride in so I figured a 10mile TT was as good a way of hurting myself as any.
Before the start everyone was talking about fast times. The weather was nice, there was a slight wind, but it seemed to be blowing in a good direction, and there were forecasts of thunderstorms rolling through and supposedly nice low air pressure. All this talk of fast conditions, plus my power SB on Wednesday left me feeling pretty excited. I was also trying out my new Xav-approved wizard's-hat for the first time.
Immediately I set off I knew I felt tired and although I held 270w for a while my power began to drop away as I approached the drag up to the turn. Coming back into the headwind was even worse and I didn't really feel like I could get the power down until the last km or two. Final result: 23:46, AP = 257, NP = 259. Not great, but not too bad, and after 2 10s an HIM within a week I can forgive myself for being tired.
However the reason I'm posting is this... on the 27th May I rode 23:27 in windy and slow conditions (AP = 260, NP = 260). The fact that I went 20 seconds slower off near identical power on the same course is no big deal in itself, however, the thing that annoys me is that today was supposed to be the much faster day and almost everyone else who rode both events went substantially quicker.
Me: May: 23:27, AP = 260, NP = 260, June: 23:46, AP = 257, NP = 259
Paul Nicholls: May: 24:13, AP = 233, June: 22:56, AP = 240, NP = 243
Olly Gould: May: 24:25, June: 23:17
Pete Oliver: May: 22:04, June: 21:39 (having already ridden the course on a tandem)
A couple of people went slower (Simon Drewett, James Hunt) but by and large most people saw big gains.
So why was I so slow? I've changed my position slightly and got a new lid, but all of those changes were Xav approved and so I had doubly good reason to expect to be faster.
My position doesn't look too awful here, and this picture is moments after the turn so I hadn't yet tucked my head back down:
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