So today was the first race of the George’s Spring Series, a 10-mile individual time trial. I picked up Ted and we headed out to the course. With the loss of an hour due to the Daylight Saving Time switchover, it felt particularly early. When we got to the course we were surprised at how many people were there already. Unfortunately I think the time-change caught a few people off guard and things were a little chaotic and there was a long line at registration. But it was a good opportunity to say hi to people you haven’t seen since last season.

We finally got registered and then got our numbers and timing chip. Since I didn’t go off until towards the end, I had time to catch-up with a lot of people. When I did finally get on the trainer, my legs felt good. I just did a 20-minute warm-up with some efforts but didn’t make it too long so I wouldn’t miss my start. Since they were going by bib number and I wasn’t sure when the first rider started, it was hard to know exactly what time I’d be going. Ted had his new TT bike which he was breaking in today (pictured).

I lined up with time to start my clock as my 1-minute rider went off. Then Ben was my 30-second man. When I started I took it conservatively but I went harder than I did in training. When I got to the bottom of the hill, it was obvious it was a decent headwind out, so I knew to keep the outbound portion hard. It pays (time-wise) to go harder on uphills and headwinds. Ben had a great start so he was way out there as I settled into a pace at the 2.5 mile mark. But coming towards the turnaround I started gaining. After the turnaround, I slacked a bit but was still able to pass Ben. Then I tried my best to keep working it when I got to 7.5 miles. Once on the hill, I slowly picked up my pace and was really pushing it hard by the top. I realized how long I had after it leveled off, but when going at a race-pace, you forget how much .5km could hurt!?

At the finish there were two sets of wires. Since we were using timing chips, I always put the foot with the chip down when I go over them. So I stopped pedalling when I saw the first set of wires, then realize that the finish was probably the second set. So I pedaled a few more strokes then just rode through the second set. Oh well, I don’t think it cost me but 1/10th of a second. I did give it my all at the end and had nothing left to give.

After a cool-down and some more conversation, we went to check results and I got 4th! Not bad…my time was 22:13 with an average speed of 27mph. Not bad for the conditions and the hill, but I was actually hoping to break 22 minutes. Ted also had a good ride and was 5th right behind me (well RT was 5th overall, but he’s a masters racer). It was a good effort and I’m happy with the result. It would have been real nice to of had a power meter for it. I’m seriously considering doing something so Heather and I can have a power meter for time trials and our A-priority races.

Here are the full results:
http://www.spondoro.com/results/JasonBroome/2007/results.pdf