Saturday evening - 5pm
Warming up for the 2.5 mile uphill (6-8% grade) time trial. Im not sure Ive ever climbed a 2.5 mile hill and Ive only done 2 other TT's and they were flat!! The pro women are giving us advice as us 3/4's warm up. Dont go too hard out of the gate, dont even look at your heart rate monitor, push as hard as you can - its only 2.5 miles, push even harder at the 1K sign, the finish isn't where you think it is....
They have a seat holder and that was kind of cool. Carrie and Bri see us off and hold our water bottles for when we return. I keep it in my small ring and add all my gears in back to avoid pushing too hard too fast since I was warned not to! I start the climb and start taking all of those gears off one at a time.
My heart rate spikes as I try to find my rhythm and my breathing - and the right gear. I climb and climb. As people who have finished turn around, they coast back down the hill on the other side of the road. Many of them yelling - "push", "you've got this", "good job", "keep it up". It was pretty cool. Maybe it was because of the horrible look of pain on my face (as seen on the pics) - don't even think you will ever get a cool TT pic, they dont look good - you will always look your worst in a TT! But, I enjoyed the encouragement just the same. They started us 30 seconds apart and Chris, just 30 sec behind me, quickly passed. I could see the woman in front of me for a while and could tell I was slowly gaining on her. I kept my rhythm and she started to slow when the hill kicked up again towards the end. I pass her!
I see the 1K sign. Ok, Im supposed to push harder now. Uh, ok, well, never mind, my legs say no, Ill just keep this pace b/c Im doing all I can at this point. At about 100 meters from the line I stand to push harder and Im able to muster a short sprint. Ouch! Glad that is over.
On the way back down, I realize how long that thing really was! I cheer on my teammates and other competitors as others did for me. Im happy with my performance, but end up in 21st place, this time, with a few more 4's ahead of me. Oh well. My time trial (flat and uphill) needs some work, but now I have a good baseline for next year! :)
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