Today is a double-stage day in the Tour of Walla Walla. This morning we raced an out-and-back 6.7 mile time trial. Then this afternoon is the 95-mile Waitsburg road race. My legs weren’t feeling that great during my warm-up for the time trial. When I did a couple efforts it felt inordinately hard for the given wattage. But at least with time trials, I control the pace so maybe it will go better than last night’s road race.

The course was slightly different than last year in that we started a little bit sooner on 8th Street. This put a nice little roller right at the beginning just after you’ve gotten up to speed. This threw me off as my start ended up being harder than I wanted and I really suffered for the next few minutes. After about five minutes I felt a little bit better, but due to the rolling, slightly uphill outbound section, it was hard to get into a rhythm. I kept pushing it all the way through to the turnaround.

The return trip wasn’t so bad as we had a tailwind coming down. I’m sure glad I had a 53/11! I was able to pedal the whole time and try to maintain my speed through the rollers. I really pushed the last kilometer, right through the line. My time was 16:33 which was only good for 34th place. I say “only” because TT’s are my forte and when I have my legs I’m usually in the top 20 in this caliber of field. Ted finally got to beat me in a TT in 27th place while Hugo had a stellar time trial with only the use of aerobars (no disk or aero wheels) and was 42nd! Heather had an OK time trial as well.