15 Mile Team Time Trial – H15/10
This was the first race of the year for me and my lack of training had put off any likely partners from within the club, so I was forced to drag in a ringer, my old IM training partner Lloyd. This presented something of a dilemma for me, on the one hand he would undoubtedly be fitter than me, so would be able to provide a decent tow, but would he be too quick? The last thing I wanted was to not be able to hold my own (for a change Kev).
Race morning presented us with a howling wind, but bright skies, it looked promising. We were off at 14.08 so arranged to meet at 13.00 to give us plenty of time for registration and a bit of a warm up.
This course is based around Drift rd, which is on my doorstep, so I was able to have a couple of spins around it in anger, prior to the race.
Registration went smoothly, other than a slight disagreement about my wheel choice. “A disc hmm, bit windy for that isn’t it, what gearing have you got on it” 11-25 “What ! Where’s the 28, you know you’re shit at climbing” Cheers, nothing like a bit of a confidence boost before the race.
After registration we headed out to the start. The road that the Village Hall is on, bisects Drift Rd, so we turned right and headed towards the start. When we arrived, bar the occasional tumbleweed, nothing or more importantly no one, about. At this point we have 10mins to our start time, so a furiously fast 6km warm up to the other end of Drift entailed. We spotted the starters, pulled over, and after a brief discussion about the CTT putting the wrong course on the event website, we were off. With about 30 seconds to spare. AGAIN.
Our tactics had been based around the original course, Lloydie taking the uphills, me taking the downhills and sharing the flats as we saw fit. The new course didn’t fill me with joy as it meant 2 ascents of Hawthorne Hill, which although not steep, in TT mode, was going to be a real effort for me.
I lead us out, no starting issues. I went off like a scolded cat, really putting the hammer down to get us up to speed as quickly as possible. Within 500m, disaster, Lloydies fancy DI2 threw his chain. I feared the worst, I had visions of it being mangled or worse, snapped. But to his credit he righted it on the fly.
Hawthorne was as bad as I’d feared, I held on grimly, but at a high cost, only 5bpm min off my max HR. The remainder of the first lap continued fairly uneventfully. But as we started lap 2, we headed into a ferocious headwind, at this point our ave speed was 36.5kmh, my very loose target was 35kmh so I was pretty happy a this point.
Pretty soon things began to unravel. The head wind up Drift really took it’s toll and by the time we headed up Hawthorne for the final time we were managing a paltry 22kmh, I thought Lloyd was being kind, but it soon transpired that his previous days 15mile run had dented his reserves somewhat. I was tried to claw back some of our lost time when I suddenly noticed that there was no shadow behind me, the elastic had well and truly snapped.
We limped the remaining couple of km home and finished in 42.17, which averaged 34.6kmph. If I’m honest, despite all evidence pointing to the contrary, I was a little disappointed. We paced it badly, our teamwork was poor and despite the wind I felt we could have done better.
Nevertheless we headed back to HQ with the promise of cake.
Unbelievably our time was good enough to place us 2nd, although some 10mins off first. So despite it not being the strongest of renewals, we were rewarded with a crisp tenner each. Which after costs, left us each with a handsome £1 profit.
All in all a great day out and gives me a little confidence after a fairly disastrous start to the year.
Oh Honey and Date.