Team Time Trialin, one of my favorite things to do on skinny tires. This year some teammates from Flagstaff Cycling and I decided to race the State Championships. The race was down in Arizona City on a pretty flat piece of road kind of in the middle of nowhere. The night before Robert and I drove down to meet up with our other teammates Mark and David at the Motel 6. We got there after dark to avoid just sitting in the hotel room. We chilled for a little while, talked some strategy with Jim Silverman and Bryan Antol and then just went to bed.
Woke up bright and early, ate a little food, and then got in the TT mindset. I was ready to suffer, I was ready to ride fast! We showed up to the venue and set up the trainers. I put in some hard efforts to make sure I was really ready to go, I knew we had to start hard. About 10 minutes before the start I hopped off the trainer and went out and spun around. The team gathered at the start and you could feel the intensity in our group, it was awesome!!
We started controlled, with Mark working us up to speed. Once up to speed we rotated through pretty smoothly. I was feeling good, but I knew I had to hold this pace for the entirety of the 50 minute or so time trial. Everyone was working well, not pulling through too hard or too slow. The race was not to eventful out to the turn around. Legs were still feeling good, had a bit left for the return trip.
We didn't go around the turn around too smoothly but if anything we only lost a couple of seconds. Right out the turn there was a big headwind which made it hard to get back up to speed but fortunately the road turned about a kilometer after the turnaround. Then we just had a side wind which was much better than the huge headwind. This is where I had a little difficulty. I took a big pull in the headwind which tired out my legs a bit. I took a couple shorter pulls but was able to comeback quickly.
The team started to get back in a good rhythm once again. We finished strong and came across the line all together which was awesome. I was done though, left everything out there. One of the most intense efforts of the year for sure! We ended up placing second in the Open Men with Team Landis taking the win. I was stoked with our performance though. We averaged just under 30 mph, finishing the 40k course in 50:12, a great result in pretty windy conditions.
Thanks to my teammates for a great race. Had a great time with you guys! Also a thanks to Flagstaff Cycling for the great support!!
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