I've been mucking around with my position for the first part of this year and now have it back exactly where it started. I have also invested in a powertap wheel which gives some very interesting feedback particularly about pacing time trials and I'm now starting painfully slowly compared to my approach last year, however it seems to work as I'm picking up a lot of time on the latter parts of a course.
Well the first truly warm weekend of the year and with light winds forecast it was looking like it could be quick. Having sold Marek some wheels I'd invested the proceeds in an aero helmet and there could be no excuses now (apart from the lack of a carbon frame - those cervelos look awesome!).
Team Cambridge 10 on the Saturday went well. New pb despite having to stop and unclip at the turn and 12 hours later I was back on the A11 near Newmarket to ride the ECCA 25 on the same stretch of road. Conditions seemed a bit better then Saturday evening the breeze having dropped. What breeze there was was headwind out/tailwind back which I much prefer. With only 12 hours between finishing the 10 and starting the 25 I was worried about my legs and they felt a bit tired during the warm up, but once I took the bike off the Turbo (thanks Terry!) and did a few short race-pace bursts everything seemed to be functioning.
29 minutes to the turn and things were looking ok. With the tailwind on the way back and legs getting really tired I abandoned my higher cadence approach that I've been working on and started to really grind out a big gear. Was quite surprised by the speed that the finish approached (I only managed to fit in 1 minute of my last 2 minute push) and reached the finish line in 54.25, new pb by 42 seconds.
Just to cheer me up even more some of the faster riders didn't have great rides and I squeezed into the top 5.