Steel City Endurance Racing

Let’s just say that I *heart* Time Trials. It’s just you, your commitment, your legs, and your bike. No wheel suckers, no negative racing, no sprinters, just seeing who can go the fastest over the same distance. Sure, the bike tech geeks have taken over the sport in some respects, and while there is a place for aero equipment, sometimes it seems an obsession over the latest lightest coolest bars or oddshaped water bottles threaten to eat the heart out of the sport. To me, it remains all about ‘get in your groove and pedal.’

So I was looking foward to this years Natz TT course. Out and back on the eastbound lanes of a 4-lane SE of Louisville. One long 3-4% grade right off the bat, some shallow ups and downs, another 1 Km 2-3% then slightest of negative false flat to the turn around and repeat. Exposed to the wind, a couple of winding curves. On race day – tail wind out, head wind back. My kind of climbs, similar to courses I’ve done well on before.

Arrive in plenty of time to confirm “official race clock” time; check out the start house, the finish chute and all important finish line; find the bathrooms; chit chat; final bike prep; and warm up. My start time was 11:48:30, 30 seconds behind Diane, a rider from out east whose TT times are very close to mine – a good rabbit. As I hunt for a good parking spot, I see Diane, who tells me there is a two.hour.delay. for everyone. Seems they set up the course, which involves closing off the east bound lanes to traffic, lining up cones, barriers etc and posting marshalls at all side roads and the Chief Official told them it was not safe enough and to bring in more barriers, cones and marshalls. Good reason for a delay, but holy cow. So now I had to fill two extra hours with … something. A nap would not do, so aimless wandering ensued. Watched a few riders go off, half listened to the announcers for the men’s races, chatted, ate some of my pb&j sandwhich which was supposed to be the post-race drive home snack, stared into space.

Finally it got somewhere close enough to think about warming up. Tires inflated, again, chamoised up and pulled on the skinsuit, got in a decent 30 minute warm up, rolled over to the start chute, Official measures the TT bike, tells me I need to do the morphological exception test, do that, pass that, line up behind Diane and chat with the race Official from the Bronx with totally cool Hincapie sunglasses, short episode of NERVES,clomp up into the start box, second short episode of NERVES, start my chrono when Diane starts, say “GO DIANE,” clip in, holder holds, 10 seconds/5 seconds/GO, roll down the start ramp and GO.

I have played the next 36 minutes and 59 seconds out in my head a couple of times, searching for where I paused, or could have picked up a few seconds, whether the turn was crisp enough, whether I should have gone into the small ring on the long climb, etc etc. But no, I can’t really think of where I might have squeezed out anything else, or have done or un-done anything. Good cadence, HR where it needed to be, churning down the miles.

I will say that the race manual and race announcers made a mistake in describing the distance: they kept saying it was 25.8Km which works out to 16 miles, so it was a bit of a surprise when I saw 7 miles on my computer and glanced up to see the road which was my benchmark for the turnaround and there it was – an official & a cone with the orange “turn around” arrow. YIKES. Yes, chipotles, the race was 14 miles. Not 16 miles. Now if Gary the Sheriff were in charge we know that would not have happened.

I really had no idea where I finished and the race announcer wasn’t saying anything … I had an idea that there were several of us very close together, time wise, but kept the faint hope that I might have snuck on the last podium spot. I rolled around and around and around, getting in a 20 minute cooldown without having to get back on the trainer. Finally got dressed, packed up the bikes, walked over to results. No results for our age group. Then they did the awards, except for our age group. We’re all standing around, trying to figure it out. Finally, Marianne Holt and I walk over to the Judge’s stand and ask for results. We get a blank look. Seriously. Judy Miller tells me my time, which is helpful, but when we say that our group’s results were never posted, they seem surprised. They finally print it out and show it to Marianne and I. She is 8th, @:36:48 and I am 10th, @ :36:59. Thud. Marianne won the TT at Seven Springs two years ago and I podiumed the last two years. “Oh,” we say, “that’s disheartening.”

All I can say is that our group was full of strong time trial riders as well as road racers. The woman who won, Ruth Clemence finished 2 minutes ahead of 2nd place. Ann Marie Miller who won the RR and the TT, RR and crit last year finished 3rd. Which says a lot for how well women’s racing is developing, but it was a little humbling for me.

I knew going in to Masters Natz that I had missed an important block of December/January training – the big base miles and sub threshold efforts – and although I got some of that back, I didn’t get all of it back, but on the other hand, I’ve done all I can to get my race fitness back to where I can at least try to be competitive. I also didn’t have any real TT races ahead of Natz, except for the one Friday night TT. I still did practice rides, but I did not have the opportunity to get in a solid 20Km or 40Km ‘real’ TT.

If I focus on results, I am a tad disappointed and dismayed. “I did all that work for a 10th place finish?” If I focus on getting back to racing shape, racing a good smart road race, and giving it 100% for the TT, then I can be a bit more pleased. Time now to chill, enjoy being home again, and think about July and August.