Conquer the Canal TT, Tabata Style

John Gray and myself represented the Virginia Beach Wheelmen at the Conquer the Canal TT. It was John's first TT of this short of a distance, and I was planning on trying something different. Since I am not a very good time trialist, I figured I would use this race as a test of the tabata intervals.

So I started my race and settled in. At the 2-minute mark I started my intervals. My intervals were 20 seconds with 10 seconds rest. I would go hard and accelerate for the 20 seconds. Then shift to one easier gear and and spin at a higher cadence for the 10 seconds. My speed was only dropping 0.5-1.0 mph during the 10 second rest phase.

I was able to maintain this until the 20 minute mark. At that point my legs were getting tired and so I was dropping too much during the rest phase and barely catching back up during the acceleration phase. So at that point I just tried to settle in and ride hard.

My goal was sub 29 minutes. In the two years prior I had done a 31:31 and 31:41 (last year's 31:41 was when the course was 12.7 miles instead). So a goal of sub 29 was still significant improvement for me.

I crossed the line in 29:04. So close. But it was great training. I may try this again for one of the PTL. We'll see.

Picture above was taken by BJ Samual. That's me and John waiting for results.