Yesterday was the Icebreaker TT. It was my first race of the season. To quickly summarize, I set a power goal and reached it. I hit a good HR. And placed 14th out of 37.
All of this means that even though I worked my butt off, I am just not strong enough yet. I will get there. My fitness continues to improve. I'm loads stronger than I was at this time last year. And I know I'm only getting better.
I am still learning how to reach inside myself to find new levels of self-induced pain. Self-induced pain is much more difficult than externally-induced pain. When I am sprinting against someone on the track, I can think beyond the pain; ignore the pain; I don't even realize it was there until it's over. But in a TT, it's just me and my pain. My bike and my pain. On the road. Alone. And I am thinking today that, although I thought I pushed as hard as I could, in truth it's tough to say. Could I have pushed harder? I'll say, "Probably." How do I know how long I can sustain a certain level of pain? If I push just a bit more, will my body explode? No. Will I blow up too early and end up wobbling back to the finish humbled and slow? Perhaps. But there truly is no way to know until it happens, right? Do I have to have this happen to me before I can really know my limit? Hard to say.
I hear we do this course again later in the season. It will be good to compare.
For now, I will work on exploring more pain; looking past the pain. Should be fun.
Next up: Mason Lake #2 and/or Tour de Dung.
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You did great at IceBreaker TT and that should help you see where you are currently and build on that for the rest of the '08 season. I think I may have seen you warming up on the side of the road while I was warming up / cooling down for the TT.
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