If someone says to you that they love doing time trials, they are lying. Or they have found themselves in that period of time between time trial races where you have forgotten about the pain and lured yourself into a false sense of over-confidence.
Time trials require a maximum effort for an extended period of time. That hurts. When you haven’t done a time trial in a while, you tend to forget that it hurts. Consequently, when another time trial comes around, you mistakenly anticipate it with enthusiasm. You have grand illusions of how fast you are going to go and how easy it is going to be.
Then comes race day. As you warm up, a small amount of buyer’s remorse creeps up on you but you ignore it and convince yourself that it will be all good once you’re out there on the course. It the start gate, you begin to stress a little as you have probably been standing around for 10-15mins waiting and getting cold.
As you start, your heart rate goes up to 90% within the first 500m and from here until the end, you absolutely hate time trials. Even if you are actually going fast, it still hurts and you just have to put up with it. As you cross the line, you (well at least I do) swear to yourself that you won’t sign up for another time trial again.
As the results come in, you start to think about all the little things that could have cost you more time. ‘If I just went harder up that hill. If I just started out harder. If I just took that corner faster.’ You seem to forget how much pain you were in at the time.
A few days or even hours later, you find yourself looking forward to your next opportunity to do another time trial. All the pain is forgotten and you convince yourself that the next one will be significantly different.
You are only fooling yourself.
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