HPRW Nicol Jackson Womens Series - Round Two ITT

 

Every year HPRW run a fantastic womens race series - and the TT round is my favourite.  They do an awesome job of attracting women, many of whom are first timers - they had 42 women this weekend!  Definitely doing something right.

Personally I was there to race for fitness and fun - and am mostly to get back and being part of it, and being me.  That said old habits die hard, and once on the start line I felt my usual routine kick in.  Concentrate on how to start.  Deep breaths to kill nerves. 



Starting in the first 10 riders - there was no-one to hold us for the start so it was a push off clip in hammer type affair.  Boo!  Much prefer being held when I have TT bars.   Last time I raced this course I did the full 33km - so today was a walk in the park with the 20km out and back in front of me! I love this course, plenty of hills and some rough road. It was a beautiful morning with a great turn out across the grades. A grade had some strong girls - Katrin, Jess, Jemma, Marianne and a good handful of international level triathletes out to try their hand.  Plenty of tough competition.  Now we are talking!

A smile? Clearly not going hard enough.

TTing is really about balancing on the redline - go as hard as you possibly can but don't explode.  It is a knife's edge.  Based on my data I am going to go ahead and claim the knife as my biatch - 99% threshold.  YEAH ! In the pocket!!!!

Hills hurt when you are already on threshold.

Completely unexpected - somehow I rode faster than last year when I was in peak form.  Maybe when we let go and enjoy the ride we get out of our own way?  Food for thought.

As an added bonus, I made it onto the A Grade podium 3rd behind Katrin and Jess. Mostly I loved seeing all my bike riding buddies, talking trash, racing hard and leaving having had a great time!