A 'Perfect' TT

Yesterday was Ghisallo's Velo in the Valley Time Trial. Over 130 racers lined up to test their meddle against the clock for a 12 mile race of truth. Originally, the TT was to be on Saturday and a criterium was to be held on Sunday. Unfortunately, after a great deal of work the plans with Chesterfield just wouldn't come together and the crit had to be scrapped. Let me say the good folks from Ghisallo made up for the cancelation of the crit by putting together a fantastic TT for racers. Kudos all around.

I was 9th man (or racer to be politically and technically correct) off the line. I did my warm-up, settled into the line-up and soon enough was off. My goal this race was to get to my target heart rate as quickly as possible and stay there for the entire race. For me, that's a HR of 165 beats a minute. I averaged 166 beats a minute for the race. My other goal was to finish in 28 minutes. I finished in 28:32. That's close enough for me. Albeit in the world of TT, 32 seconds can be the difference between 1st and 20th. Although in this race, the difference between 1st and my 5th place finish was 74 seconds. During the race, I used two gears. I would shift up to keep my cadence over the rollers while attempting to keep the lactic acid buildup in my legs down. Cresting the rollers, I would downshift and use the incline to pick my pace back up. Talking to several racers afterwards, they did the same.

This was also my first TT with my new rear wheel. Mark at Ballwin Cycles provided me with a sweet team deal on a Mavic Comete for my TT bike. The wheel was definitely a plus during the ride and I'm thankful to Mark for the help. My good buddy, Mark Ewers, took advantage of his recent upgrade to the Cat 4's to put his foot down and acknowledge his presence as a super solid contender for today, and future TT's, with an impressive 2nd place and a time of 27:25. Also, it was good to see a couple of my teammates, Theo Vander Velde and Rob Oellermann racing in the Cat 3's. Theo finished in the money with a 4th place and Rob got himself a top 10 place. Well done gentlemen!!

Looking back on my race I really couldn't have changed much. Technically, I messed up one of the only 90 degree corners on the course, but that was with the help of a non-racing rider on the course. He cut across the apex of the corner on my line and I had to seriously come out of the pace. Didn't cost me any finishing spots, but certainly took me out of my rhythm. I'll just say it was a good thing I have been racing crits because I ended up taking a very aggressive line on a bike ill-suited for such cornering.

Finally, I must mention the bible verse I put on my bike. 2 Samuel 22:33 "It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect." While I didn't win my race, God certainly was with me and made my way perfect.