Tips for Racing Time Trials.

Having done quite a few time trials these are some of the important things I have learnt in the process of racing

• Prepare Equipment and test in advance. On quite a few occasions, I made last minute changes to equipment and then found that they didn’t work whilst racing. I remember one 31 hilly mile time trial where I raced the last 15 miles with the time trial bars facing 20 degrees to the left. Before the national 100 mile championship, I found my handlebars were loose, just 3 minutes before my start. Fortunately another rider carried an allen key, otherwise I would have never have raced.
• Give time to arrive. There is nothing worse than frenetically driving through unknown country lanes trying to find the hq in time to make the start. Despite giving myself this advice repeatedly, I seem to still make the same mistakes.

Racing.

• Don’t start too quick. A common mistakes for beginners is to sprint off from the line and exert too much effort in the opening 5 minutes. What happens is that the anaerobic effort leads to a quick build up of lactic acid in the legs and you then spend the rest of the race dealing with this. It is best to see the first 2 minutes as an acceleration upto race speed. Then try and maintain this constant pace throughout the race.
• Don’t lose Concentration in the Middle of the race. The biggest challenge in a time trial is to maintain the necessary concentration throughout the race. It means avoiding the temptation to ease off the pace on the pretext of being in too much pain.
• Clear Thought / No Thought. Related to the previous idea of maintaining good concentration is the importance of controlling your thoughts. If you are thinking about what to have for dinner after the race, it probably means you are losing concentration and racing below your potential. As much as possible I try to keep my mind clear of thought. Especially ignore thoughts of doing badly or getting tired.
• Don’t get distracted by Others, but concentrate on your own race. The great thing about time trials is that it is a race against yourself, but still we get despondent if we can’t keep up with competitors.
• Don’t get depressed by a bad performance. I remember in my second racing season, I went through a period of continual improvement in my pbs. My Pb for a 25 went down from 57.00 to 52 minutes in about 6 consecutive races. But, then I stated to go backwards. Progress is never in a straight line; we can’t expect to get pbs all the time. It is important to avoid getting discouraged by fluctuations in performance.
• Know the Course.
• It is always good to know the course thoroughly beforehand. Even if it well marshalled there is still scope for taking a wrong turn and wasting a race. Since a race can take 4-5 hours of your time, it is worth spending 10 minutes learning the correct route, so you know it in your mind. I remember one 25 mile race where I took a wrong turn and ended up coming last with a 25 mile time of 1:19. My total race distance was 32 miles and I was pretty thirsty at the end of the race.