Jack and me headed down to Floresville, TX to partake in the 2010 edition of the Texas State Individual Time Trial (ITT) Championships. This was both of our first times to compete at this event. Jack was in the 10-12 year old division and I was signed up for the 35+ 4/5.
Jack was scheduled to roll out around 7am, so we had an early wake up call. We actually drove down to Spring Branch and stayed with a Cousin Angie so we only had an hour drive to Floresville from there. For Jack his goal was to ride the 6 mile course and average 17 miles an hour.
On the ramp he did great, he was one of the few boys in his division to actually clip in before the start and roll down clipped in. The would either have only 1 foot clipped in or no feet clipped in. He thought the ramp was cool and got a kick out of it. He was off and I patiently waited for him, 21 minutes later he was on the horizon and finished in 21:29 and average 17.32mph!
Next year he'll need to average 20 mph to get to the podium, the winner averaged 21.97, 2nd: 19.89 and 3rd 19.8mph. He was happy with his result.
We had 2 1/2 hours till I rolled out at 11am, at 10 I unpacked my bike and got it set up. Art had loaned me his Mavic Carbone front wheel for a little added aerodynamics and I had a wheel cover for my Mavic OpenPro PowerTap equipped wheel. By 10:15 I was ready to start my warm up. As I started I quickly realized I was not getting any power readings. After fiddling with it a little bit there was no signal coming from the hub. A perfect time to have the batteries die!
All I could do was shrug it off, all my pacing was by watts and speed. Since I hadn't ever ridden the course I was going to be relying on the power a little more. Without it all I had to gauge myself on was speed. Going into the race I had 2 goals, to break an hour for the 40K and place in the top 10. I figured if I broke an hour it would be a given into the top 10.
I was slotted to roll 3rd from last, in fact I was suppose to be Enrique's 30 second rabbit, but due to a crash he wasn't able to compete. The person behind him didn't show either I don't think so I was left to run sweeper for the course. While watching the others roll out I noticed the wind for the first time. During Jack's race there was hardly any wind, same with some of the earlier starts. Of course now that it was 11am not only did we get the heat but the wind too.
Finally it was my time to go and that I did. I tried to pace myself the best I could based on feel. After a few turns to get out of town I soon saw my 30 second carrot. I caught him a lot faster than I was expecting and blew past him. This worried me a little as I might be going to hard. One other thing I should mention is that the only thing I new of the course was that the promotor said there was about 300 feet of ascent for the 40K. Thus I was expecting a fairly flat course.
The further out of town I was getting the hills were rolling, nothing big, but more of them than I was expecting. Without knowing what was coming I didn't know if I should go hard up and have time to recover on a down hill. To complicate things the wind was kicking up and it wasn't a direct headwind, but a combination headwind and crosswind. As my speed started to plummet down from 26 mph. I made the decision to attack the hills and hope there was a downhill to recover.
Around mile 11 I caught my 1 minute guy and made the turn, looking at my average speed it had dipped down to 23 mph. I had hoped there would be a tailwind and in some cases there were but for the most part it was a crosswind. Not only that but when it would gust up it would catch my wheel cover and push me to the left so I was fighting a bit to stay straight. Now on the way back all those glorious downhills I used to catch my breath were now uphills. The course was relentless. I caught a few more riders and passed them but as I was making my way through town the 1 hour mark ticked off and I still had .6 miles to go. It was at this point it was the first time I could feel how tired my legs were. My speed was suffering and I was losing focus. I had to gather myself, if I didn't step up I was quickly loosing my second goal of a top 10 finish.
My final time was 1:01:44 with an average speed of 24.10 mph for a 7th place finish. Not bad, if I would have broken the 1 hour mark I would have placed second. I was expecting a time between 57:30 to 59:59. My first thought was not having the power data had cost me by not allowing me to pace myself. On reflecting I don't think not having the power data was the issue, but in all actuality not pre-riding the course was the biggest issue.
The highlight of the trip to Floreseville wasn't my 7th place finish, but after my race as Jack and me were walking back to the car he says to me, "This weekend has been so fun, it was better than being allowed to play the Wii all day, eat junk food and sit on the coach."
Jack's weekend wasn't over, on Sunday he and Ethan competed in the Inspire Kids to Tri here in Cedar Park. Jack finished 3rd in the 9-10 year old division. Ethan did great too, he finished 23rd in the same 9-10 year old division.
Check out some pictures we took of the ITT on Facebook.
