Time Trial
38th/83 Masters 35+
Today was day 1 of this famous stage race. I decided to participate in it after getting my upgrade to Cat. 4 and talking it over with my coach. It sounded like fun, but intimidating for sure. Worst case scenario, this would be an excellent 4 days worth of training.
Owner of Aegis Pete Orne hooked me up with a dialed in Trident for the race. This bike looked fast standing still! As this was my first real timetrial (TT), I felt confident going into it knowing I had top-notch equipment.
The weather forecast was iffy, with a chance of thunderstorms. While warming up, it felt like all the right criteria was there for the skies to open up, but thankfully they didn’t. It stayed humid, overcast and breezy.
I had been of the mindset that a TT is similar in difficulty to a mountain bike race in that you go as hard as you can for the duration of the event. Today, however, in the midst of my event I discovered some glaring differences:
In mountain bike racing, you’re mind is distracted by bike handling and a variety of terrain.
In a TT, your mind repeats 2 questions over and over: how much further do I have to go and can I really keep up this pace for that long?
The course was 6.2 miles long with a couple of climbs, a 45 degree right hand turn, and an uphill finish. I scoped out the course by car the day before, but was still clueless as to how the race would actually play out in terms of gearing, etc.
I motored away at the signal to go, but missed clipping in to my pedal the first time around, hey every second counts! I kept it in the big ring the whole route regardless of hills, got aero on the flats, and stood on the climbs.
I feel like I gave it all I had, and the placing is about what I expected. My time would place me in the top-20 of the all ages Cat. 4.
Next up is the Circuit Race.
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