I am looking for advice to get the best flying 200 I can at my first competition this coming weekend.
Best Advice: Think of this as a "training race" and not a "real race".
In the course of a season you will have:
- Training
- Training Races
- Races
Training: Normal weekly training on the bike where you practice events with or without a stopwatch.
Training Races: These are weekly organized local races against others at your track. The only thing at stake are points (that don't mean much) and bragging rights.
Races: These are your State, Regional, and National Championship type events or any similarly big events. They are usually 1-5 per season depending on how active your track is or if you choose to travel to big events.
So, relax.
Also, one key to improving your flying 200 is to practice it and log the results of each effort (like you seem to be doing). Do so often with race wheels and helmet as you would in competition.
Learn the best line for the flying 200 for your track. You can do this by following directly behind others that are better than you. Ask first.
Take a stopwatch or the stopwatch app in your smart phone and see how quickly 0.10s goes by. Now you will see why
everything is important in the flying 200M.
Finally, understand that the flying 200 is only a key to get into the sprint tournament. If you don't learn how to match sprint, you will be frustrated. Don't spend all of your time focusing on the flying 200. Many great sprinters were never the best qualfiers. Some qualify in the middle of the pack and win their way to 1st place. This is especially true at the local levels where skill and prowess can be very different among competitors.
All of this takes a lot of time in the saddle.