Great fun for a first TT and my first race in two years.
I removed all the lights, pumps, tools, snacks, bottle cages and assorted crap that's normally strapped onto my old Bianchi (I think I brought it under 30lbs!) Next I borrowed some museum-piece aero bars from Lister that fit my skinny handlebars (thx again, L - they sure beat bruised forearms!) Finally, on Thursday I borrowed a Death Star gunner's/sperm hat from a triathlete buddy (photo evidence below). I was all set. Well, almost...
I think I pulled every rookie mistake one can make.
First: I spent the five days leading up to raceday tinkering with ever-changing configurations of seat height, seat incline, bar position etc. before concluding - after a pre-race massage to address a newly screwed-up back - that riding like you're a severely repentant choirboy with your arms stuck straight out in front of you, all but begging some looming Jesuit priest to rap your knuckles, is always going to be effing uncomfortable and there's nothing you can do about it.
I received plenty of advice about getting in a strenuous warmup, given how the race was an all-out effort from the start. So, after toodling about on the course, checking out the turnarounds etc, I thought I'd ride 10 min along the coast toward the Marina and when I hit 10 minutes, I'd turn around so that the 10 minute return trip would bring me back to the start area a neat 5 or so minutes before my start time. "Don't want to be standing around in the cold wind!" and all that. So there I was, having just come off King George, sailing along McNeil Bay feeling marvy, when it occurred to me that there was an increasingly strong tailwind I hadn't really factored into my complex temporal warmup algorithm. A minute later I was belting up the hill towards Gonzales and then absolutely flying along Fairfield, my heart in my throat. I made my start with a few minutes to spare. Who knows, that little extra adrenaline may have even helped.
I'd thought about gearing with a start ramp in mind. But when I saw it would be a standing start on the level, I failed to adjust my thinking. This meant that when Joe Gard removed his hands from my posterior, I almost blew my kneecaps out just trying to get the damn bike moving!
A little flustered by this, I charged that first descent from Clover Point like I was sprinting sur l'Avenue des Champs-Élysées. I hit the rise up to St. Charles going what felt like Mach 10, a red mist descending on my vision. A little tiny voice inside me saying, "I don't think this is exactly what Peter meant when he said it's all-out from start to finish."
By the time I was coming back up the rise to Clover and passing my 30-second-man, I was feeling truly, truly wretched. The wee puff of headwind coming around that corner felt like a November gale. From there to Mile Zero was just a black tunnel. I appear to have erased it from my memory in some reptilian exercise of human adaptation to adverse conditions. The only thing I recall is looking down briefly at some point and wondering if the impressive strand of mucous painting my inner calf from knee to ankle had fallen from my nose or my mouth.
When I turned at Mile Zero (thankfully upright), I saw my minute man and focused everything I had on the catch. Just like Kate, I found that extra gear as I went by and had a moment to ponder whether I really am as uncompetitive as I'd like to think I am. I caught him before Cook, but the effort took everything out of my final 500m and by the time I hit the line I felt like I was pedaling squares and steadily decelerating.
Congrats to all the Tripleshotters and otherwise who achieved something just by being out there. There were some amazingly quick riders going by when I marshalled post-race at the cemetery. There were only four TS volunteers left doing break-down by the end at 10, but I know a lot of folks pitched in to set up, too. Tripleshot should feel good knowing that whatever sponsors are involved year after year, the event really relies on the backbone of our club support.
I am grateful for the loaned equipment, the shouts along the route and to the many of you who put up with some naive questions over the past week or two. This won't be my last time trial. My time was 8:08, or nearly 40 seconds off my best training run. By that measure alone, I think the result is a success. But the real Win was doing something new, outside my comfort zone, that occasionally filled me with nervous excitement, and that gave me one more reason to love riding my bike.
