The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Yeah, my brother and I used to love to watch that movie. But this isn't about the movie. It's about the time trial this past weekend.

I debated with myself a lot about going to do this 40km TT in Carlisle, PA on Saturday morning, but I finally signed up for it on Friday morning. Friday evening, they sent out the start times, then sent them again, starting everyone 10 minutes earlier! 10 minutes doesn't sound like much, but it's a lot when you have a 2.5 hour drive and you need to get there enough ahead to have at least an hour before your start time. I started to email the promoter asking for the Chief Referee's contact info so I could bitch accordingly...and that was when I figured out that it wasn't a sanctioned race. This did not make me particularly happy, but so be it.

I was focused on Friday evening. Lot to do and a need to go to bed early. Step one was get the bikes ready. Drove myself crazy looking for the 'crack pipe' adapter for airing up my disc wheel. Eventually I realized I'd put it some place I could find it - not in my gear bag as I'd thought but right in the pump! Getting better at the wheel swap on the horizontal drops, but since I have a car plenty big enough, no reason not to take a 2nd bike to warmup on the trainer with and have the Ordu ready to race. I decided to take the Ruby because it's also 10-speed that way if I thought the conditions were such (ie rainy) that I didn't want to race the disc I'd have a rear wheel I could swap in relatively quickly. So I packed the car up with bikes and gear and went to bed relatively speaking early. My alarm clock was set for 4am.

I awoke at 2:30 and rolled over, telling myself to enjoy another hour and a half of sleep. Maybe I drifted off for a little bit, I'm not sure. But 3am and I was awake again and it seemed unlikely that I'd fall back to sleep. So I read for a bit, checked the radar imaging for possible rain, did my morning stretch routine. Finished packing up and headed out. Is a bad night's sleep better than no sleep? I wasn't sure, I'm still not.

The upside to driving at 4am is that there's almost no traffic. Unfortunately, my car - now 11 years old with 183000+ miles on it - is slowly dying. One of the big annoyances now is that the cruise control no longer works. I don't know if it's the switch or something else, but it's probably not worth the money to have it fixed. I don't notice it much because traffic is too heavy around here to use it. Around Frederick, I started encountering pockets of fog. This was the kind of fog that I tend to refer to as "ground fog" as it seems to be in the low-lying areas, like it's coming up out of the ground rather than down from above. In spots it was thick enough to require cutting back on speed a bit.

I stopped in Thurmont to pick up a breakfast sandwich and use the restroom. Back on the road and more fog. But as sunrise approached, conditions began to improve. I'm always happy for an uneventful drive. Arrived about 630, tail end of my target window, but acceptable. Got unpacked, set up, picked up my number, signed off on their waiver and started to warm up. Already I know I'm not in a good place for a TT. I don't want to put on my music, this is not a good sign.

A woman from Sturdy Girl racing parked next to me. I helped her out with the loan of a trainer skewer when she discovered that hers wasnt in the car as she had thought. Ken Johnson was the next car over. He didn't know the course at all. Lots of DC racers - Ace , Mike & Spencer from Latitude, bunch of NCVC guys.

Dona & Helen are parked across the aisle from me. Half an hour into the warm up they announced that they were going to delay sending the first rider off until 8am, so that more of the fog would burn off. I opted to get off the bike for a little bit to delay the rest of my warm up. Then they pushed first rider off to 830.

By this time, my head was pretty far afield from racing. It had become an expensive, long drive for a training TT. This is very bad as time trials are hugely about mental state. I warmed up some more. Then decided I needed to ride, not be on the trainer. Pack up the Ruby, trainer, etc. Got on the Ordu and tried to get my head into the game. I knew I didn't have any gels but was too distracted to bum any off anyone else. It never even occured to me. Finally it was time to ride to the start - about 1.5 miles away.

I was the next to last of the women to go. Only Kathy Watts was behind me (wildblues). The TT starts out up hill - it's not a big hill and it's sort of a stair-step thing. I take off and wonder how long it'll take me to catch the novice TTers. Margaret Kilby is doing it - I've been faster than Margaret for a couple of years, so I'm confident I'll catch her at some point, she's only got a 1minute head start on me.

I start out strong, looking to get my HR up where we want it to be. It doesn't want to go there. It wants to settle in around 175. I realize shortly after I start off, that I haven't checked the seating of the speed sensor on the fork and it's gotten nudged wide, so I'm not getting any speed data. It only takes a moment out of position to reach down and fix that. Once I clear the initial hill, I can see Candace who started 30seconds ahead of me. I know that I'll catch her eventually. But I can't get in a groove, can't find a rhythm. I pass Candace and tell her to "keep it up."

Tim Barry (Clean Currents/DC Velo) passed me, then some guy from New York. I watch as all the sudden they seem to slow down a lot. I hit the same hill and watch my speed plummet while my legs do the hard work. For once my HR approaches target. But it doesn't stay there. I push on even though my brain already knows that it's not going to be the result I want. After all, DFL is not going to happen now that I've passed Candace, so it could be worse.

I see Helen, Margaret and Dona bunched up together up ahead and know that I'll pass them. I'm clear of them by the 10km painted on the road. Now it's just me against the clock. By 15km, the fog has gotten really dense. More like cycling in a cloud. The temperature drops. I get cold. My riding goes to hell - I can feel my form slipping as my shoulders complain about being crunched up by the bars and the saddle introduces new levels of pain.

I can't see very far ahead of me. I flip up the visor on my TT helmet as it's covered with condensation. That helps some, but now exposed to the fog, my glasses start to accumulate condensation as well. I can't see if the road is going to go up, down or turn - visibility is at most 100yards. I know the turnaround is coming fairly soon - but I worry about missing it because I can't see those who have turned around ahead of me on the other side of the road. Ok, that means visibility is more like 50 feet or something. Yikes!

Kathy catches me at the turn around, which looms out of the fog abruptly. Oh well, it'll be second place. Could be worse. I'd gone into the event hoping for 64minutes. I started out pretty much on that pace - 8minutes for each 5km. But even a few seconds off the pace adds up over 40km. I end up having to push my glasses down my nose a bit to be able to see at all. Good thing I can see ok without my glasses - not great, but well enough, especially with the limited visibility.

The way back, my HR is way low and nothing I do gets it up. I stop worrying about it and just do what I can to keep my speed up. Some NCVC guys pass me. I ride back out of the fog and start to warm up again. Strangely, Mahler 8 comes into my head. When I ride TTs it's usually a pop song in my head, something with a good rhythm for the effort. But this ride, nothing is there. TTs are about suffering, a lot of suffering, but this day, the suffering is getting in my way. Maybe that's why the Mahler got in my head.

In the end, I had a good time - only 90seconds off my target - and that was good enough for 2nd place, but it sure was ugly.

Even though my body is still adapting to the new bike, and a new saddle is a definite must before any more competitive efforts, I like the bike very much.