The TT course has had several locations. For the last few years it's been in Newborn. The Newborn course has two turns over the rolling hills typical of our part of the Piedmont.
I headed out early Saturday morning. It was a little strange not having Robert with me (he did today's Healthy Newton road race but not yesterday's TT), but I have enough experience to handle all of my own race logistics comfortably.
I saw several cycling friends as I checked in and set up my trainer. I was glad to see everyone but wasn't particularly chatty. I get nervous even for a short race, and I have to focus my attention on the task at hand.
After warming up on my trainer, I headed to the start line for my 8:30 AM start. I was the first of the 10 Cat 4/5 women. I would be the carrot for the rest of them.
I felt the usual nerves: kind of barfy and a slight urge to go to the bathroom, despite having hit the port-o-potty a little while previously. This TT didn't have a start ramp or even anyone to hold me up on my bicycle. An official counted me down: five, four, three, two, one - go! For some reason I had some trouble clipping into my right pedal. However, I got it after a few seconds and didn't dwell on my less-than-auspicious start.
I hadn't even bothered to switch my power meter from my road bike to my TT bike for the race. With only six miles, I decided simply to ride as hard as I could for the roughly 20 minutes it would take me. A power meter might even have been counterproductive for such a short distance.
Steady, steady, steady! Fast, fast, fast! Smooth, smooth, smooth! I coached myself each pedal stroke of the way.
Don't slow down! Keep your head in this! A climb - go hard! Maybe you'll pick up a few seconds on the competition.
Only about a mile to go. Keep going hard! A speed hump, then another. Don't worry about it - just keep pedaling. Finish line!
Tony Bennett may have left his heart in San Francisco, but I left my guts in Newborn, Georgia. That's the way you're supposed to feel when you do a time trial the right way. I had ridden at least half a mile into my cool-down before I even began to feel my breathing slow down.
I felt like I raced well; I didn't leave anything out on the course. When I first uploaded my Garmin data to Strava, I thought it showed my time as approximately a minute slower than last year. Wha? Then, when I looked more closely, I realized that I was looking at a Strava segment that is slightly shorter than the entire race course. My overall Strava time was actually a little less this year than last year. That seemed more like it.
I changed out of my skin suit and headed to the podium area to await the results. I had good conversation with Angela, Liz, and Rosie, who were in my category, as well as my teammates Allen and Chad, who were in the men's masters race.
I won! In fact, I had the fastest overall women's time! (16:23) The best part, however, was the zucchini:
A local farmer had come by and given the race organizers a big box of zucchini. They had the excellent idea to give it to people on the podium. Best race swag ever!
Later that afternoon, Robert and I went to a Jordan Engineering cookout. The zucchini made a great side dish:
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