Bloused at the Bikeworks TT

synopsis: Yeah so GeWilli had an off night on a fast night and fell off the podium when Potter showed up and Becca was motivated by me starting behind her for some reason.
 in a few more words:

With a bit of scheduling challenges this week the Wed smackdown was not something i could get to, tuesday didn't happen and so pinning it all on Thursday may have been not super smart, but at least i'm aware of being an idiot.  That's worth something.

Rode in to work on thursday, missed the massive deluge that hit but still got caught in a bit of the rain which of course sparked a flow of "is it going to happen" emails and strava comments with a final agreement that Morse and i would ride the course no matter what.   Fortunately the weather cleared by lunch.  I had planned to get a burrito, because for some reason a big bean burrito with guac and sour cream and super spicey sauce feels like go fast food.  Work's been pretty crazy this week. A bit over scheduled. Next week's not looking much better. That's what i get for taking a few days off. Just me, no one to pick up the slack when I go, everything just gets pushed into non-existent space.  I've come to terms with it i suppose, that's how this works. Wednesday was way crazy but not as stressful. Thursday was both.

Finally was able to ride home, feed the dog, sort out the TT stuff, load some Skratch into the bottles and stuff the bike in the back of the Van and drive in.  Wife was out of town Wed night at a conference and it was easier to have the van waiting for her in town. So I parked the van, swung through the shop to top up the tires (because I didn't do that at home because i was running short on time). Aired up the rear tire. NBD. Pumped up the front. Took the pump head off the valve and the presta core went rocketing across the shop. I've got 10 min to ride from the shop to the start. No problem. Sort of. Got it changed. Used the shop compressor. Damn that feels hard but lets top this up.  WTF 120? Dammit. Seriously? oops. let some air out bring it back up to 95. Check compressor, sure enough 120.  Fred must have been doing some Tubeless installs and well it explains why Don was blowing so many tires up.

Okay. New tube. out the door. Oh wait. Not yet. Forgot the valve cover for the rear disc cover.  Joked that i left two seconds on the table.

And FINALLY was rolling. Late. A bit stressed. Burning adrenaline. Was calm as I could be but now i was late.

Met up with the Prov Velo/Brown crew. A bit thin with just four of us electing to meet at the start. We wound up with Fox and Derdowski and Burke making the solo trek to the start. Burke drove with some excuse that he wouldn't have made it, i wonder if it was because he hates riding that TT bike with the non-functioning brakes to the start and back.  No matter though we got there. Took a different route. Much more relaxing than blasting down 152 and then over and up Tremont. Got there.

Potter was already rolling around, and well there ya go, he's consistently faster than me, Steve had a chance maybe to take the top spot. The winds were calm for a change, maybe a slight tail cross on Tremont.

I got slotted in behind Becca. And like i've said before, given the times she's put down, the conditions, and all that, she's f'n fast. But hey, like week 2 starting behind Andrew, I never should have caught sight of him but i did. Didn't catch him but man it was close. So part of my brain was thinking this would be the same. I should maybe be able to catch sight of her by the corn crib. no problem right?

At the start and up through the subway my HR was over 170 when i peeked down. I was going more by feel i guess, trying to take advantage of the speed where i could. It was hot too. Eyebrow sweating hot. Kyle kept saying it was like riding through a cloud. It wasn't like week 2 with the mist and actual condensate on the helmets and bikes, but it was humid. So I watched my HR drop. and my speed. the same. And then when I couldn't even catch a glimpse of my 1 min person (Becca) my brain went into kind of negative mode. For a second.  Also again, like previous weeks. a car was passing me right at the turn to Reynolds so i had to take it a lot slower than I wanted to.

Turned on to reynolds and I could see the blue and green way down the distance. Ok, visual. Lets go. Just wasn't much there to make it go though. Low cadence wasn't getting me there, high cadence wasn't working either, usually I can make one work but damn maybe that low sleep night and stressful day were messing my times. finally hit the turn on Peck and powered up that riser, got to the top a few second recovery and then brought the speed way up. Okay this will be good. I should be able to get her in sight on this speed run.

Nope. Not a chance.

And I was slower than week two through there. Felt it at least...  sensations were not good but I was giving it everything I had. emptied the tank. the ancient old paramount was obliging and doing what it could to but the legs were just sort of saying, "fuck you dude".

I don't want to take anything away from anyone that night, i got flat out beat.

But even with the leg lack of cooperation I rolled through the finish. Gave Bob the number (9) so he could try his new software http://racesplitter.com/races/AF727C20E

Rolled back and Kyle was "Dude She BEAT YOU!" My brain didn't process it at first. I took the sweat drenched TT lid off and grabbed my bag from Bob's car and peeked at the manual timing (like previous weeks, not Bob's new thing on his iPad) and saw that indeed it was a fast week, and wow, Becca did beat me by two seconds.  The hand timing had me at 19:10, bob's thing was at 19:11.

I hobbled back to the bike, and sat on the ground. actually kind of a bit shaky. not a good sign. Meanwhile Becca did her best Triathlete impression doing high knees in the grass talking to everyone, acting like pfft no big deal.

But hey, I'm good with getting bloused. She's f'n fast. Dropped my ass a few times on the Wed night smackdown, well documented here. No surprise esp since she's riding a nice slippery BMC with a goofy helmet and light fast pretty aero wheels. It isn't the equipment i know.

I know it was a shitty week less by that, because I think she can probably find even more speed on the course and can potentially keep beating me esp now that's she motivated even more. But more me looking at Morse's time.  I've been about 30 seconds behind him in week 1 and 2. Both very different conditions but consistency. I was 55 second behind him this week. That more than anything else, or I should say, that along with everything else sort of tells me what I knew would happen pretty early in the day on Thursday.  I kind of hoped I could put it all together but yeah. That didn't happen.  Still was a good time and a brutal effort.

Respect to everyone that night, lots of good times were posted, Steve wasn't too far off Dave's time, and Becca definitely takes advantage of the grad school schedule to put the training in. Maybe I can get my shit together for next week. Hell Fox cranked in a sweet time not too far off mine. He's got speed left to find too. esp given his only aero equipment is a set of Profile Airstryke bars.

Kind of wanted to do dawn patrol today but getting the runner and the soccer kid out the door for a weekend tournament sort of nixed that and the dancer is sleeping. Quiet house this morning.  Once the dancer wakes up i'll probably head into the shop and build a pile of bikes.  At least it isn't brutally hot today. That's a nice change. Hopefully the soccer team found the tourny spot. They should be starting the game in a few minutes.

Time to cook the breakfasts

heddwch
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