I’m making up some family time lost last week in Italy and we snuck out to Nantucket for a long weekend. After a day in the sun, everyone was wiped out, and gave me a hall pass for a quick ride.
20-30mph winds made the ride tough.
Twelve miles into the ride, I round a corner and see a digital timeclock next to the road. The guys standing near it shout, “Hey, join our time trial!”
Hmm, that sounds kind of fun. Never done that before. Why not? I turned around.
Turns out that I’d found myself in the middle of the Nantucket Triathlon / Velo club’s weekly time trial. The group was really friendly and welcoming of a guy in Weston Posse kit on a cyclocross bike (maybe smelling fresh pack fodder). I hopped into line behind two guys on full time-trial rigs, aero helmets, Zipp disks – the works.
The really friendly organizer said, “don’t worry about keeping up with those guys. The first is my husband and he’s doing Ironman Lake Placid next weekend – he’s really fast -- and the second guy is a pro Ironman.”
Trying to build up the excuse bank, I mentioned for the 8th or 9th time that I’d never done this before and I was on a cyclocross bike (my max gearing on my cross bike is 46x11).
With that I got a quick course description, my 30 second warning to start and clipped in one leg. Before I knew it, “5, 4, 3, 2, 1..GO!!”
The first two minutes reminded me of the start of the Weston Sprints on skinny skis during the winter: heart rate goes from resting to max in about 15 seconds and throat burning starts immediately.
At that point, I started to realize that I didn’t know beans about how to do a time trial. I remembered hearing an interview after Lance lost a crucial time trial to Jan Ulrich in the TdF – “look, all I can do is peg my max heart rate and hold it. I can’t go any faster than that.”
So, I decided to do just that. Pegged my max heart rate (187) and decided to see how long I could take the hurt.
Believe me, it hurt. Badly.
I was pushing as hard as I could and was shockingly flying along at 23-25mph.
As I approached the turnaround I could see my 30 second man (pro) making the turn. To my shock, I wasn’t that far behind him.
Made the turn and kept pushing. Seemed forever until that digital clock showed up again for the finish.
Ready for a shock? I came in 3rd of twelve – yes, a podium for the Posse!
2 minutes off of the pro and 1 minute off of the Ironman and averaged 23.1mph over a windy, slightly rolling course.
Very little climbing, just stubbornness to push at near barf stage for 20-30 mins. I might just have finally found something in cycling that I’m good at ? Now I’m thinking, “how do I pitch the need for a new time trial bike to Heidi? Just think of how fast I could go with a new $12,000 sled underneath me…”
Even better, earned an invite to their Saturday group ride. Can’t wait.
Am loving Fred’s island.
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