Wednesday, April 27, 2005

4/23 – Northwest Time Trial Series 40K

Feeling like we needed to gauge our current fitness level Team Tartan made the trek down from Seattle, to Corvallis, Oregon. The TT was a rolling 40K time trial over a course that had George and Terri’s names written all over it. Over the RAO course they some how finds away to pack in 40,000+ feet of total climbing over just 538 miles, where RAAM only gets a measly 80,000 feet in 3,000+ miles.

Driving down, from Seattle Friday night, we didn’t get into Keizer, where my parents live, till a little after midnight and then it wasn’t until 1 or 2 in the morning that we had the car unpacked, bikes prepped and had hit the sack. After 4 hours of sleep, the alarm went off and it was TT time, straight to the car, and then to the TT course. With the only deviation being a brief stop for coffee, vente extra hot mocha for me and two straight shots of espresso for crew chief Ben.

In route to the TT both Ben and I slurped down a breakfast jug of perpetieum.

We arrived at the TT start just a little after 7:30. Registered, and had a start time of 8:55 or so, I don’t really remember exactly. George and Terri looked really great, I think they are secretly training for something.. Anyway back to the TT.

In a little over an hour, I changed into the TT clothes, had to make a few final adjustments to the bike, break pad swapping, etc. Use the portable facilities, warm up,
Eat some gel, finish the coffee, and get myself to the line..

On the line, things were feeling good.. Ben was off, and then, 30 seconds later I went. After which everything just was one big groove fest! I would like to describe the TT more, but I really don’t remember it all that well, After ~3 miles, I caught Ben and the guy he was chasing, after I seemed to real people in just one after another.

There was a slight head wind heading out, and it was definitely a tad easier on the return,
Over the course I basically held my heart rate at a real constant 175 BPM, every now and then it would spike up but over all it was very constant.

I ended up finishing second in the cat 4’s, averaging just a hair over 22.5 mph for 40K on a George Thomas suffer fest. First place was just 10 seconds up, and Ben secured a very solid third a little over a minute back.

After the TT, we did a short cool down riding out towards Mary’s Peak.

It’s Tartan Time!

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