Motorin'

Every once in a while, the time comes for the student to beat the master. For me, that time was last night.


It didn't look like we would have good conditions at early in the afternoon. The wind picked up and seemed to be coming from everywhere, but mostly from the west which is the hardest wind to deal with at Cherry Creek, a la last week. To hedge my bets, I brought the rear Nimble Crosswind, just in case I didn't think it would be prudent or beneficial to wrestle with the disc and high wind. With the usual warm up under my belt and armed with a new skinsuit, I headed out to the reservoir.

My aim was to try something a little different last night. Instead of the usual hard out of the gate and settle in type effort, I decided to keep it a little lighter on the way out and really try to drill it on the way back. I sprinted to a start, still put it in the 55-11, but instead of trying to mash my way through, I tried to simply "float" in the gear, not letting the legs load up. I down shifted a little sooner, more at the approach to the hill so I was spinning a higher cadence before gravity kicked in. After the turn around, I ramped back up to the 55-11 as quickly as possible, but shifted at the smaller rises to keep cadence up. There wasn't any point where I felt like I was going to die which is always a good sing. I also felt like I had a little left in the tank at the end which means I probably could have started my final ramp to max a little sooner.

I will not argue with the results though. I caught a couple people I have never come close to catching and by the time I got close enough to the official clock to read the time, it showed 7:01:00. It took a few moments for my oxygen deprived, adrenaline rich brain to process the fact that I was looking at a time in the neighborhood of 21:20! At 21:13:0 (a new personal best), I averaged 30.12 mph.

The coolest part of it all is that my old team sponsor, Randy Wittmer and his wife Dee were out to watch and go grab dinner afterwards. It means a lot to me that he still shows interest my riding and still considers me part of his bunch. Had I not gotten to know Randy, it is quite possible I wouldn't be racing bikes at all. I was happy to have them there to see how I have progressed over the years.

I always tell everyone that Randy was the one that tricked me into this whole bike racing thing. I met him in 2001 at Bike to Work Day happenings on Fillmore Plaza, back when I was running Transportation Solutions. I bought a bike from him since my old one was a 12 speed (13-19 cassette), not really Colorado friendly gearing. He mentioned that he was starting a team for people who wanted to race, nothing serious, just a few races a season. I signed up, got out and raced the time trial series in 2002, turning a 30:00 my first race, whittling it down to a 27:47 in the last race of the series. I DNF'd City Park and Bannock as a Cat 4 that year and that was my season.

Mike Carter was one of our sponsors, offering up a reduced rate for coaching with Echelon Sports Performance, with a six month commitment. I signed on, lost all the extra weight I put on after separating my shoulder playing lacrosse, got significantly stronger on the bike, more motivated, and here we are today. Every goal Mike has put out there for me has been attainable, even if I didn't believe him at the time. I thought he was crazy when he said I could go sub 23:00 at Cherry Creek. Two years ago, after my best season racing as a Cat 3, I rolled my eyes when he said I was still three years away from peaking. Last night's result was a good reminder why I put the time in on the trainer during the winter and encouragement for the rest of the season as I continue to prepare for Masters Worlds.

That is if I don't die from exposure this weekend . . .