How Conor Podiumed the U23 Nationals TT

I began working with Conor in November of 2017. As a junior he had some stellar rides like a third place on a stage at the Junior Tour of Ireland. He placed 10th at the brutal Ft. McClellan Road Race in 2016, a Pro Road Tour (PRT) event, at the age of ripe old age of 16. Later that year at the Six Gap Century he hung with me up Hog Pen Gap (the hardest climb of the ride) while I was doing a lactate threshold effort. That day he impressed me. I constantly have told him he is very good, and I am aware of it referring back to that effort I remember from long ago. A little later during the 2017 summer he rode with me for a weekend camp, and we hammered some mountains with a couple other friends. It was a great time! Later that year in October he called me as he was looking for a coach, and I was very excited he chose to work with me.

Over the past couple years we have been able to help him improve about 20-30 watts each year. Last year he was very wiped out by this time because he had to race a ton with his CCB team and with the USA U23 National Team. Even though last year was tough making the jump from the junior ranks to the U23 ranks and taking on a bigger training and racing load I think it was a positive thing. It told us Conor's current limits, and I think it's a good thing to learn your limits. This year we took a calculated approach and gave Conor a slightly larger training load than last year. He has been able to tolerate a fair bit more work as he has gained another year of endurance. As a result of this gain he is also able to repeat multiple efforts of higher power than last year.

This spring was bittersweet. Conor came into the year flying and had some good results at Valley of the Sun Stage Race. However, the day before Redlands he had a crash that took him out of the race. I knew it was hard for him, but I was confident he could come back from that injury, if he wanted to. I told him all the gains we made over winter were not a fluke.

After Tour of the Gila I had Conor take a few days off the bike. We did a couple weeks of base work, and then we began an intense phase before nationals. Typically we load the weeks with three days on in a row to work for stage races. However, with a bunch of one day races on the calendar for now we changed the three day blocks to two day blocks. During those two day blocks there was only one hard day, but it was always a very hard training day. The purpose of the two day blocks was to have Conor fresh for all his workouts. That way he could produce big power on all the workouts similar to what he would need for the one day races. I also had Conor ride his time trial bike for an hour to an hour and a half two to three times a week.

He came to the Nationals TT feeling super. His power meter had been acting strange recently, so I gave him heart rate guidelines to follow for the TT. Since the nationals TT was going to be a long TT of around 35-40 minutes in duration I told Conor to not go over his lactate threshold heart rate for the first half. Once you go over that limit early in an effort it seems your legs will be sapped for the rest of the day. Throughout the effort Conor surged over climbs to slightly over lactate threshold and would recover at slightly under lactate threshold on the downhills. In my opinion he paced it perfectly. The power seemed accurate on the day. He averaged 352 watts on the way out and averaged 341 watts on the way back. The average power for the time trial was 343 watts. I think the pacing was spot on because he more or less rode on his limit the entire effort. On the way back he did average ten less watts than on the way out, but I do not see that as a big decrease in power similar to cracking. He did a super ride and took home third place.

Power File from the U23 Nationals TT

I am really proud of Conor for this result. He has been working very hard for it, and it is not a coincidence. He is going to keep getting great results from here on out.