3 km hill time trial warmup

[ireland57]

I've got a 3km hill TT tomorrow and would like to know what you think is a good warmup. It's 270 metres vertical with the steepest parts at 10-11 percent with 2 x 100 metre parts at approx 4%. Should I use them to recover a little or gain pace on them?

I was going to do a bit of an endurance ride beforehand (I'm mostly training for a mtn bike race in July) but this'll be fun....well, not fun.
Last year on my first attempt (having never ridden the hill before on a road bike) I spent 2 mins at the top riding in circles while my body decided to spew or not.
This year I'm a little better trained.

I'm hoping to take off 2mins then ride around the top while my body.......

I usually need a longish warmup before a hard morning effort.....maybe 25 - 30 kms with a couple of short hill sprints at the end. Would that be around the mark or not?

Thanks.

[DanielS]

Your warmup plan of 25-30km sounds good, that's what I would probably do, maybe incorporate riding to the start? During the race I'd use the flatter sections of the climb to 'recover' a bit - still keep the pace high.

[ireland57]

Well I did the TT. Only just but did it.

The warmup felt great until I hit the 2 hills I was using as a heart starter. I topped the first easy one (400 metres x max 14%) and was tired sort of; I rolled around for 10 mins and did the 2nd one (150 metres x 18%) and was absolutely rooted at the top; cardio ugly and legs shot and I decided as I topped the climb not to do the TT. Another easy roll around for 10 mins; saw a mate at coffee shop ; stopped for a chat of course for 1/2 hr then went to the TT.....mentally refreshed.

Short, steep hill efforts to keep legs moving felt great.
Start TT. Felt great. Until I got 400 metres into the climb (easy part of it) and realised I had no cardio or legs. Ohhhh, this is gonna hurt.
My heart rate at the top was 10-12 beats lower than normal on an effort like that; I'm not sure why.

Last year was 14:06; this year did 13:40.4. So I still took 25 seconds off.
I was hoping to do 12'ish minutes but it can wait to next year.

My body told me during the warmup I was going to struggle. Sometimes you can have a crappy warmup and go very strong during an event; other times it goes like my TT.
Why is that?