But anyway, back to the race, it was hot out and mighty windy this morning. I got down to the school and was registered and ready to roll with plenty of time to spare. I hopped on the bike and since I had never been on the course, did my warm up down the first few miles to see what it would be like. Going off #28, I knew I had some time to spare and was slated for 10:13:30am. I got my 30 minutes of warm up in and the legs felt a little heavy. The course was supposedly a "V" with the first half being net downhill and the second half being net uphill. The only problem was that it was a headwind on the way out and a tailwind on the way back. I made it to the start house with about 2-3 minutes to spare and watched as several folks missed their start times (I really don't know how that can happen...it happened all the time in tack and field when I was in school too...) But I digress, my time came up and I rolled up, reset my computer and clipped in as someone steadied me and then sent me off. We were starting in 30 second intervals and within the first 5 minutes, I had already caught two guys in front of me. The goals that I had in my head were to break 50 minutes and come in at an average speed of 25mph or more. Nothing too hard, but with the wind, I was averaging about 23 on the way out which didn't put me in a good situation for the total average speed.
Most of the top guys were all rocking disc wheels, full aero helmets, booties and tricked out bikes and I saw them all coming back as we approached the turn around.I hit the turn around in about 26 minutes and did some quick calculations and that came out to 52 for a total time, which is still solid, but above where I wanted to be. So I started cranking. I was still catching folks and using them to reel myself in to the finish line. With about 2 miles to go until the line, this guy came up on me and passed me (he would be the only one who passed me that day) and since we all were starting 30 seconds apart, I knew he already had me beat. My only hope was that he was a junior racer and not in Cat 5. 
Turns out I was wrong! :o) He literally smoked me and ended up finishing 3rd overall while I snatched up a mediocre 19th overall according to the final results. I cooled down with him and found out he's sponsored by Handlebars and started over 3 minutes behind me! Whew! He told me he averaged 26.5mph for the TT, that's real fast. And to boot, he's only 21...
Well I didn't rock the Big Pants gear for the award ceremony since it was soaked and smelled a little suspect, but I ended up placing 2nd overall in Cat 5 and got a nice medal for my efforts. If I had enough experience to be cat 4, I coulda gotten some cash. Maybe that'll be my incentive to race enough to upgrade? But I came to the line and turned myself inside out for an average speed of 25.2mph over the 20.75mile course (it was short by about a mile) and clocked in at 49:29 for a total time, thereby hitting both of my goals. Now the big thing was, I was rolling on stock wheels and had NO aero helmet and had pretty dead legs because I was training thru this race. I'm kinda excited to see how I coulda done with being decked out in good equipment! 
I have a few more TT's set for the remainder of the summer, so we'll see how those all go (they are all 20K's so that'll be a little faster) but it should be fun to see how they go and keep things interesting :o) I'm still prepping pretty solid for Musselman in July and that should be a showdown against the clock. Next up is the Owasco Flyer RR in Auburn this Sunday to get a little more road experience under the belt. See you folks on the roads and trails friends. Put your big pants on and cheers!
3 comments:
Which distance are you doing at Musselman?
Doing the Half Iron. Should be a great race there this year with some solid competition! :o)
I thought your stock equipment was 80mm deep? (Sidenote: I hear Hunters rubber is 1080 deep). Sorry chap, with only that kind of drilling potential you better hope they swim as good as you do. Does GU make lube? Don't want your boys bonking on such a long journey.
Okay, I'll try and clean it up for the family readers. Assuming most of them aren't like mine and don't gather around the neighborhood literate guy while he spun magical tales of espionage, love and health care reform from those printed pages he called books. Books. What a great word. He/They inspired me to learn to read, a small time kid from Horseheads reading and writing before he's 35. Sky is the limit really, or so the local radio station said. (Editors note: Would be silly to say newspapers, radio is better for illiterate people, or those who are too unattractive for TV.)
Nice work and pace on a tough day with your stock ride. You know that wearing a non-aero helmet is like wearing a visor. Sure, it's like a hat but we all know it's really missing the top.(Okay, second Editors note: Horseheads isn't filled with illiterate people nor is there anything wrong with people who don't or haven't had the opportunity to learn reading and writing. Oh, and sorry to any unattractive radio personalties out there. I am sure you didn't want that anchor position or MTV/VH1 VJ job anyways. Speaking of MTV, do they have more channels than ESPN yet? Seriously though, ESPN8 "The Ocho" isn't far from being reality.)
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