Today was the first of three 40 kilometer (24.8 miles) time trials I hope to do this year. Jonnene and I were up in Galloway, Arkansas for the Arkansas State Time Trial Championships where I wanted to get an idea of my fitness level at this point. I have two other TT's coming up: the Texas state championships on August 8th and the Louisiana/Mississippi district championships on August 23rd. What I want to do is work toward breaking the hour mark, the same goal I had last year but didn't get to try for when the LA/MISS race was canceled due to one of those pesky hurricanes that came blowing through about the time it was scheduled. I did set a Personal Record of 1:02:01 at the Texas time trial a few weeks before so 2008 was not a total loss.
We drove up Saturday afternoon to Little Rock and checked into the Residence Inn which was about 4 miles from the race site...nice and close. After taking a short time to unwind after the long drive we went to Carino's Italian Restaurant to meet up with some other racers who had driven in from Monroe and Oxford, Mississippi. It was a fun dinner and soon we were back in the hotel just relaxing before getting some shut-eye. The nice thing about a time trial is that you don't have to do a lot of pre-race prep...just have the bike ready, your pre-race eats, and your racing gear (helmet, uniform, shoes, etc.). For an hour or so on the bike you don't need much.
Sunday morning we were at registration around six o'clock, signed in and got our stuff together. However, the event starts at 7 am sharp so it didn't leave us with much time to get in a good warmup. Both of us were able to go a couple of miles down the course before we had to turn around to get back for the race....you can't be on the course once the TT starts. The juniors and women were the first to go, in 30-second intervals, and I was scheduled to start about 7 minutes in the Masters' groups after Jonnene began her trek. I was able to get about another mile of riding in before I lined up on time and set off. I didn't have much of a goal in the ride today except to see where I needed to improve over the next eight weeks and to try to finish in under 65 minutes. I wanted Jonnene, who was doing her first 40K, to come in under 75 minutes.
The start was good and I only topped out the speed at 26 mph, deciding I was going to do a steady ride to test my endurance and not blow up early. I actually felt pretty good and finally found a cruising speed around 23-24 mph that I was comfortable with. That's slower than I want to go at Texas and LA/MISS in August but I'll work on that during the rest of the summer (I'll have to average more than 24.8 mph to break an hour in 40 kilometers!). Did the first ten kilometers in 15:20 and that was nice but I could tell I was starting to slow a wee bit, staying at 23 mph most of the rest of the next 10 kilometers. I caught all three guys who started ahead of me before we got to the turnaround but was also caught by two guys who started behind me, including my teammate, Tim, who had come up from Monroe. We call him the Time Trial King but he had missed his start time and had to start a few seconds later. It didn't seem to be hurting him too much! I held him off until 2 kilometers before the turnaround which I considered a moral victory of sorts.
The turnaround happens at a large curve in the road which is only a disadvantage if you don't play the downward slope of the road correctly as you turn 180-degrees to the left. Not a big problem for me and I started to push the pace a bit. I hit the 20K mark at 32:10, way too slow, and I tried to make up for it by upping the pace to a 24-25 mph rate. Again, I wanted to stay steady and stretch out my endurance as best I could. The speed dropped back down to 23 again but I passed three more riders on the way back, including Jonnene who was pedaling well and looking good for the distance (she would end up averaging around 20.6 mph and finishing with an 1:11:55 time...great job, wife o'mine!).
I had carried a small water bottle with me but I never touched it...not that I didn't want to but I didn't want to make the movements to get it and, as a result, get slowed down. I usually don't drink during a TT anyway anymore. A fellow racer told me once that you should be able to go hard for at least an hour without drinking (but not much more) so why take a bottle with that extra weight? Well, I carried a bottle this time just in case and never used it even though I had cotton-mouth nearly the whole ride. The last 7-8 kilometers seemed to take longer than I wanted but I was glad to see the One Kilometer to Go sign and took it in to record a 1:03:20 time for the distance, for a 23.49 mph average. That got me 5th place in the Masters 50-54 age group. I was fairly satisfied, knowing I was only 1:19 off my personal best time and I felt I could work hard enough before August to surpass that time gap.
My pal, Paul, came out to take a few pictures (which I hope to post soon) and, after we got the results and watched a bit of the awards ceremony, we went back to the hotel room to get cleaned up and pack away our gear. Then we walked over to the Cracker Barrel restaurant for a late brunch and catch up on things. Saying goodbye to Paul, we headed back to Shreveport, returning in the late afternoon.
I was somewhat happy with my effort, knowing that I can definitely improve on it over the next 6-8 weeks. Can I break an hour? I'll get back to you on that!
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