Blind and Fast

I had two good races last weekend. Saturday in NH was a hard uninterrupted effort for 1:12 that produced some of by best power numbers ever. Sunday in Freeport was a surprise. I had a poor warmup, was tired from Saturday, but let it fly when they said "Go." A switch was flipped- racing = fast. Someone says go, I go. Early in the race, I was surprised at my power output. It required looking for small sections to rest, but overall, I beat some career efforts.

I'm really curious about something. I think there are times when we can be held hostage by our data. Powertaps and Garmins are great tools, help regulate efforts over long races, but maybe...just maybe...they act as a cap. Mary had a good post a while ago that defended the use of these toys, as opposed to those who say they we should race and train by feel. I agree with what she wrote, but Sunday showed me that maybe my ceiling is higher than I thought.

I'll use my Powertap in every other race this season. But as an experiment, I'm going to put tape over the computer for the Cape TT. I don't care too much about the place or time (again, other than vs. a few select individuals ;-)), I care about the data. This race is to 1) do something with Nick, and 2) get better for triathlons.

So I'm going to ride blind. No data at all. No power, no speed, no cadence. I know the roads, so I don't even need to see the distance. I'm going to blast out of the start, go hard up Route 77, Fowler, 77, Spurwink, and 77 to the finish. Everything will be all out. If I blow up, big deal. That might actually be a good thing- you can't really know where your limit is until you go past it. We're only talking about 14 miles and 36 minutes in a "C" race.

This should be interesting....and painful....and valuable.........and fast.