Well that was the hardest thing I've ever done.
The 50 miles is made up of two laps of an 'out and back' 25 mile course, so breaking it down into quarters gave me targets at each of the three turns. I took it really easy for the first quarter being careful not to do too much too early and got to the turn on 29 minutes leaving me 30 minutes to get back to the start and still be on schedule(ish). I completed the first lap roughly on target with 59.something and decided to step the pace up a little for the 3rd quarter, resulting in me getting to the final turn with loads of time spare to finish the race under 2 hours. Or so I thought.
My mistake was the temptation to get past one of the guys in front, given that I had already made up 8 minutes on him (I was no.20, he was no.12) it was clear that I was going to finish ahead of him but I ended up pushing far too hard for too long to get past him. I blew up spectucularly and a mile later he came steaming past me. Gutted. I got out of his slip stream (not allowed to tail people in TTs) and cursed my self BUT ended up seeing red again and pushed past him about 2 miles later only to die on the drag up hill where he came past AGAIN and this time dissapeared into the distance leaving me to grovel home empty, with the hopes of my first ever 50TT being under 2 hrs in tatters.
The course finished on a very long uphill drag where I didn't even have the strength to stand up on the pedals, so I just tried to get as aero as possible and spun my legs for all I was worth until I crossed the line where I came in at 2:2:28secs. Double Gutted.
On the positive side: At least I made it around the course, most (sensible?) people are still in bed at that time during a Sunday morning.
Anyway, it's given me more focus for my next one.
