Nationals TT

Ok, so this is a few days late, but hey, it's been a busy week already. The drive out to Louisville was nice. A peaceful umpteen hours mostly on cruise control through the hills of Western Maryland, West Virginia and Kentucky to get to River City (aka Louisville). Only downcheck for the drive was dinner. Visited a regional chain called O'Charley's cause it's something we don't have back home and it was handy off the Interstate and it was getting late. Probably would have been good except the food arrived at the table room temperature. I ordered a baked pasta dish and got a plate of tossed pasta that was room temperature with a handful (literally) of still warm shrimp. No baked pasta at all... and I had ordered it in part because I thought that a baked pasta would have to arrive hot by the nature of its preparation. Someone needs to learn how to cook what's on the menu there....which reminds me, I think I should visit their website and log a complaint. The manager didn't charge us for anything but the appetizer, which had been served hot and was quite tasty.

On Sunday, we took at easy, no rush to get out the door. I checked in with Jeff and Kay. They were headed over at about 9am. I was looking at more like an 11 am time frame. Ended up pre-riding the course with Wendy and Robin. Nice course. Windy out there though. In fact it's been windy every day here. After the pre-ride, we head in to town to do the packet pick up thing. Need to eat sends us to a restaurant in the hotel for a late lunch. Good food and it turns out that Tom Vinson (USAC) and the Chief Ref are sitting at the next table. After we're done eating I stop to introduce myself and we chat for a bit.

Packet pickup goes without a hitch. I notice that USAC has decided not to enforce the rule about the height of the turned up ends of TT bars as I see plenty of folks with those tips sitting above their saddles being told their bikes are fine. Bad news, they want frame numbers on the TT bikes. But they won't fine us if they're on the seat tube.

Race morning goes just fine. Up and out to the course reasonably on time. Daniel and Rhonda arrived just before us. We set up the canopy for both of us to use and leave it for Jeff and Kay to use for their warm up as well. The warm up does its usually job of getting the crappy feeling of the first few shots into Z4 out of the way. I debate about the disc wheel because it's so windy, but decide to go for it anyway. Maybe I should have used the deep rim.... I'll never know.

In the chute, bike check no problem up course. I chat with the official briefly. These folks all know Jim Patton. Into the start house and wait for my hold. Hold started out seeming ok, but by 10 seconds to go, it was feeling unstable and leaning to my right and the short steep ramp is making me very nervous. I almost bail out of the hold but suck it up. We hit zero and I start to pedal but something doesn't feel right and I just hang there for a second and then I'm on this steep ramp with no momentum, no real motion at all, and thus no balance. Off center from the lean of the hold, I go down the ramp at an angle, come off it before the end into large loose gravel. I go down...cursing as it happens. Instinctively, I roll so that I take the fall on the back of my left hip. I feel the gravel as it scrapes my left calf. I get up in a rage, cursing and knowing that this error has cost me a medal. I'm off and flying as fast as possible.

Not surprisingly, Lorraine passes me fairly quickly, as most of the 30 seconds between her and me was used up in the mishap. She shouts encouragement as she goes by. Later she would tell me that from her perspective in the start house, my mishap was "horrific." I struggle to shut out the pain in my calf, which is bleeding, and my hip and find my rhythm. Gotta settle in. Gotta calm down, focus and settle in.

The road has lots of bends in it and little rises here and there but for the most part I keep Lorraine in sight. And then the positive stuff starts happening. There are other riders in sight, riders to catch and pass. I botch the turn around, too narrow, should have spent a lot of time practicing the U-turn, but mostly I think I was hesitant because of the mishap at the start. But Lorraine is not that far ahead. I keep going hard. Sometimes the wind gusts from the side, pushing me toward the center line. Maybe the disc was a mistake...too late now. Finally I don't feel the pain in my calf any more. I continue to drive the pedals. Good rhythm, good steady effort.

By the time I reach the finish line, I've managed to close the gap on Lorraine some, but of course I can't get back the time lost at the start. I roll around for a bit then return to the tent. I talk myself into spinning out for a bit but the pain has now returned so that doesn't last too long. I wash off my calf. Time to change and pack up. 6th... f'ing 6th. Ok, not bad given the situation, but I definitely would have been on the podium had the start gone smoothly.

I don't get why they had such a sucky ramp. Last year's ramp was awesome. The year before's was horrible. You'd think they could get some consistency going. To be honest, why do they bother with a ramp? Most of us don't see a ramp for a TT outside of Nationals...why not skip the ramp? This will certainly be my recommendation. Go ahead, use a ramp for the Elites...they probably see a lot of ramps in stage races and stuff. Let us poor old masters just start on the pavement like we do the rest of the time.

The woman who won my age group is a TTer...doesn't do anything else to speak of. So that's cool...sort of. I accept that there are those who simply don't want to do pack racing, but really, you aren't a true road racer if you don't pack race. I could probably do better at TTs if that was all I did, but I'll stick with the whole package. I'll keep suffering through Road Races and enjoying Crits as well as doing TTs.

The big question now is can I have a higher training peak for Church Creek in August?