Polk County Time Trial Series

I’ll just give a brief rundown of the first two and expound on the third as I remember it better.

This is a very well run time trial series run by Rebecca Marsh of Faith Runners in Lakeland, FL. She is a very fast Time Trial Rider training for nationals. 5, 10 mile time trials on a perfectly straight road await you. Yes, there is traffic. But it is mild and there is a big shoulder so no worries except when passing and turning around. Yes, there is a turnaround at the halfway point so I guess there is one turn:-)

I had never done a time trial before the first one of the series and put out a pretty good time on my first try with a little help from Kent Polk on strategy with a 23:51. I felt this was a good starting point. The wind was fair and the fastest aero rider, Jason Bergwall, beat me by 15 or so seconds and I felt like I could beat that time with a little trimming and time management. After all, 10 miles is a long way. Allan Duhm came in at a very respectable 25:02. The second time trial of the series was not that great. I added the benefit of HED 3 wheels front and back. I picked up a used rear online for near nothing, but the bearings were a little shot. I used Allan’s front.

When I arrived, I was not sure what to expect as the winds were high out south west giving us a 40 degree headwind out of the gate. As many know, it is pretty difficult to recover from this even with the tailwind on the way back…what little there was. My plan was different than the first ride. Keep it at 25 and try to hit a higher speed on the way back as I really didn’t think I could hold that high of speed on the way into the wind for that long. It didn’t work…
It was brutal! Big wind! It really felt like the wheels were just stalling out and I felt used and abused. I did hold 24, but lost the pace on the way back and ended up losing almost 40 seconds from the first ride. There were many other factors that I think probably figured into it…lack of sleep from stress and not eating properly. All the riders lost time except for the new aero rider, Zach Duncan. He rode a very fast 23:38 on his first ride. My ride was still enough to hold 1st in the recumbent division and overall for points with Jason taking second.

Now, for the third race…I knew Allan had been training hard the last three weeks training for RAAM. And, on our last ride together, he was showing a pretty significant speed improvement over the long haul. I had also heard that he was ready…even borrowing an aero helmet from a fellow rider. This was a little intimidating. I knew in my heart that he couldn’t get me and a minute is hard to make up, but he was sure going to try. The pressure was indeed on!

It was then, that I heard the bad news…Allan was out with a knee injury! Crap! I felt bad and called him on the way out to the time trial and offered my condolences. He’s a good rider and hopefully he’ll be able to do it again!!! Keep up the recovery big AL!!!!!!

When I showed up at the TT, it was a monsoon! Big rain and wind. Crap! I just sat in the car and when the rain let up a little, I was out warming up. I was back on the Alex 320 wheels as the rear HED was having the bearings replaced and Allan had sold his front to cover RAAM costs. The word spread that the start time would be moved back 15 minutes and we all lined up at the start. I was placed second to last as one of the two riders who beat me didn’t show up due to the rain. The bad news was the quicker of the two was there. I looked at Zach and just had a sudden urge to kick ass! 10…5...4...3...2...1...I’m off! The start seems to take forever. I don’t want to overdo it at the get go but still wanted to get up to speed as soon as possible. The wind had died down and the rain had stopped so it was going to be a nice cool run. I ramped it up to 27 and held fast. A little head wind of about 5mph, but figured I could do it. I caught Rebecca at 2.5 miles and kept up the speed. I didn’t see Zach in the rear view mirror so I thought I may be good. At the turnaround, I kept it nice and clean.

I kept it in the big ring so no mistakes and cut right around the cone…perfect! It was after I was ramping up, that I saw him coming into the turnaround. I put it in gear and managed to hold 28 for a little while before realizing that was probably a mistake. I then tried to keep it at 27 again and as I faded I would shift one down and speed up my revolutions and shift back up again to get the power going. It was then that I was in the thick of it. At around mile 8, I started to catch too many riders. I was having to veer out into traffic and had to wait for a car at one point. No drafting is aloud and this made it difficult. I then started to really give it all I had. I tried to ramp it back up to 28, but just couldn’t anymore. I finished strong, but dizzy, and coughing my lungs up from breathing the thick Florida air. I turned around and caught Zach as he crossed the line. It was going to be close. We congratulated each other on a ride well done and rode out for the warm down. After I arrived back, the results were posted. 23:39…Nice! Zach finished 7 seconds ahead. Darn it:-) I couldn’t actually be mad as I almost reached my goal and there are still two more races ahead of us. This win leaves me in overall standings 1st. There, of course, will be no overall win (some turkey, UMC blah, blah, blah ruling...:-)), but this raises my confidence level a little knowing that I still have a bit of weight to lose. I think on the next TT, I would like to break 26mph. I did learn that the turn around and the start kills your average…kills it! But, I still have a few weeks and I know that my dog is willing to help when needed:-)