Pain Cave Part 2

So...there we are on the second leg of the first loop. I'm feeling the burn. I'm also feeling something else. I had a chance to ride the TT setup for about 20 miles before the actual event. Not really enough to perfectly dial it in. During the event I was actually cranking about 10 rpm higher than what I did during my trial.

10rpm doesn't seem like much to most people, but when it comes to bike fit for me it appears as though it is the difference between staying in place on a slightly down tilted nose saddle or sliding forward. Apparently I was going to be doomed to sliding forward for the rest of the event.

As some of you no doubt know it really sucks to end up having something small wrong when you are in a race. During a century ride or group ride you have the option of just pulling over and fixing it quickly. During an event that would mean your event is over. So I just had to deal with it. To top it off the extreme position also allowed me to remember that losing feeling in certain areas is a sensation that I do not enjoy.

So we were making good time on good pavement, but I was starting to get uncomfortable and we had a long race still left. We turned on to leg 3 and there was a pretty wicked wind - mostly cross wind I believe. The helmet and speed were making it hard for me to really tell which way the wind was coming from. I just knew it hurt.

There were a couple of rollers and it was along this leg that we were finally passed by alien2. "Hey psimet." Thanks....I appreciate that. One thing to pass me on a TT, but it's another to do it fast enough that I had to look quickly to see who it was as well as to do it with enough wind in your chest to yell hello. Like it's just a Sunday ride - well...I guess it technically was.

This was my, "here have this set of panties" moment for this TT.

From there we hit the home stretch of the first loop. Dead on headwind from hell. We dropped a lot off of our speed. We were still struggling along right at 20 (seriously....I love that I was thinking of 20 as being slow regardless of the headwind). I was looking down at the Garmin and thinking, "Oh crap. This isn't going to work. I hope everyone else is suffering this bad."

It was around here that the 1 minute pulls started to disappear. I was too busy suffering to look at the clock, and I am a wheel sucker by nature. It just so happens it was around here that aham says he feels like he kind of hit a rhythm. Coincidence?

Rounding the corner of the start house and knowing you were just about to start all of this over again was just....well....demoralizing. I was hurting on leg 1 of the second lap for sure. By the time we hit leg 2 I was losing it. We were still doing OK, but then I just cracked. I sat up and yelled at aham that I needed to get some food in me or something. He sat up and tried to get a gel in as well.

By the time we hit the third leg I was feeling better, but the little rollers were enough to keep me just beghind aham's wheel trying to hold on. Turning the last corner I was feeling burned, but good. I was definitely getting a saddle sore the size of Texas, but I knew we only had about 2-3 miles left. When we rounded it there were a few groups in front of us. We had passed a few groups during the rest of the race, but not many. This represented an opportunity to lay some hurt on someone else. If aham wasn't going to take on the chase I was definitely going to.

Well...great minds think alinke. He just poured it on until we dropped their butts....even though they were definitely in the "masters" cats we toasted them (they were old). Once the passes were done aham swung off. I could see the finish line in the distance and really realized I had some serious juice left.

I then proceeded to blow aham off the back. News flash here folks...It's a TTT - Team Time Trial. That means it doesn't matter if I sprinted to the line or not - it was the finishing time of the second team member who set the time for the ride. I sat up and he grabbed on. We both sprinted for the line - simultaneously realizing that was most likely the hardest thing either of us had done on a bike - speed wise.

We hung around for a bit - traded impressions of what happened, etc. then hit the car for the ride home.

I just pulled the results from the site and now know this:

We placed 32 out of 51 teams. We came in last in our cat. We beat the following: 1 cat 1/2 team (they must have had a mechanical), 1 masters30+ from ABD, 1 Masters 40+ from Team Mack, 2 Masters 50 + from Vision Quest and Velo Roubaix, 1 Masters 60+ from Vision Quest, 5 other Masters teams - getting older, 1 set of juniors - extrapolating their data for 2 laps, and all 6 women's teams including their fastest team.

Stats:
1:24:23 for 31.16 miles = 22.26mph average.