TT Race and a Century

Neither one of those were planned.

On Saturday I decided to do the State Time Trial down in St. Peter. Not sure if I should even waste my time using a stock bike, since I don’t own a TT bike, I decided to do it anyways. I wasn’t worried about the 40k distance (24.5 miles). Heck a Wednesday group ride is like TT the entire time—I’m always trying to catch-up with the group. So I hitched a ride with another team that was going down.

Back of the Party Bus--what a greate image!

We got there just in time to register. I was the 104th person to go out of 106 racers. I came out of the bathroom, thinking I had plenty of time since I was the third from last to go, and this guy said they called my number. I raced over to the start line, they told me to put my foot down then to go. My heart rate was already crazy since I was in a panic. I guess they start your time when they call your number to go even if you are not there—it turned out I got a 2 minute penalty.

I was told that I would be more efficient if I just stayed in my drops then if I just stuck arrow bars onto my bike. I opted to not put on arrow bars since there was a number of other stock bikes (like mine) that didn’t have bars. I regretted that decision after the first mile. I was so uncomfortable on the bike. I couldn’t stay low on the bike without having every part of my body ache. It was a good course and I could see myself really enjoying TT racing. I’ll just have to play around with my bike positioning for now until I get a real TT bike. (always something) Needless to say, my time was horrible. The other girls did great coming in four minutes in front of me.

Aside from the crappy racing the company was fun. We were the last group to leave the parking lot. We hung out, had a few drinks and laughed a lot!

Yesterday I was going to do the Stone Arch ride with Holly, Dave H and Mike B. Then Holly and I were going to go MTB since she will be in a bus for 2 weeks as part of the road crew for RAAM. I scratched the MTB ride because it was raining, but we decided to do the Stone Arch ride anyways. I went up to her place in Anoka so we could ride together and pick up Dave H. along the way. We got to the bridge and decided to changed our route. It was a good thing since I didn’t know if I would survive the hills in St. Paul. We went to St. Paul out to Stillwater up to White Bear Lake then made our way back to Anoka (with a little psychocross along the way). We had 98 miles on our odometer so we did a lap around the neighborhood. Holly’s read a mile more than mine so I finished up by going up and down her street to get the last mile in. When we got back we were a mess—but boy did we have fun!

Thanks to everyone who rode and pulled my sorry self the entire time (including picking off the worm that was trying to go down my shirt)—the TT race did me in, my thighs felt like rocks.

For those who are not aware of the 2008 Race Across America (RAAM), our soloist Tim Case started his adventure yesterday at about 2pm PT. The four person team will be starting their race on Wednesday. Our well wishes are with the Team Strong Heart racers and that they cross the finish line in Maryland safely. Thank Neil for manning the blog and keeping us TSH fans updated on the race!