Friday 20 March 2009

Preparing to bust my balls

Tomorrow sees the Ballbuster part 2, and luckily the weather forecast is looking much better than when I did it last November. I think it is going to be a cold start but the forecast is clear and dry, will be much nicer than the soaking roads covered in wet leaves that I had last time.

I've been training right up until this race and am actually a bit nervous, purely because I have put in so much hard work and training since the last time I did it that I feel under pressure to see some improvement. I got round in 3.27 last time so I would like to get that down to closer to 3.20 but will have to see how it goes, I was running particularly well when I did it last time and still had some of the speed in my legs from the end of last season so it will be interesting to see how it goes.

Whatever happens I am expecting a good deal of pain and suffering, the last run lap is pretty tough on this race, there is a long downhill section which really hurts your legs and then the final 2.5km up hill finishes you off nicely.

I've decided to use the Cervelo for this one, there is probably not much benefit in using the TT bike over the road bike but I'm looking at it as some good practice at riding some hills on the TT bike which I will need to do in Austria. I put the race wheels on last night and the bike is at least looking fast, hopefully my legs can do it justice!

My race plan is similar to last time, although I would like to run the first lap just a little harder to try and make some overall time gains, the bike is a funny one because for half of the lap you can't go too hard due to the narrow lanes and poor road surface but then you can go as hard as you like up the climb, I'll try and keep my heart rate steady on this part on each lap, that seemed to work well last time, the climb is a nice steady gradient and not too steep so you can get into a good rhythm.

It's nice that I have a bit of a support crew coming down tomorrow despite the early start, hopefully they will enjoy the nicer weather, my Mum won't have to hide under a tree trying to stay cry this time!

Will post a race report tomorrow when I am done, must go and eat some carbs!!

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