I shot out of the gate as fast as I could and worked my way through my gears to get to the faster end of my cassette. It had rained the night before which had kept alot of racers from showing up today (it was the first time for this race). Because of this they had lots of spaces without racers but for timing purposes they had to have everyone start as if everyone was there. So even though Turq was the person ahead of me, there was a 1:30 difference between our start times. These didn't give me anyone 0:30 ahead to use as my mark.

I pushed through the first few small rollers without a problem. After a few miles I could see Turq and he was getting closer and closer. I knew that I could beat him today but I wasn't planning on chasing him down during the first half of the race. But since there was no one else to pace off of, he became my target for the day.

I didn't want to push too hard on the way out so that I wouldn't burn out on the way back, but I really wanted catch Turq on the first half of the course. I came over the largest hill of the day and ride down gave me enough momentum to pass him on the next small hill.

I could see the first three starters on their way back in so I knew the turn was close. A minutes later I was headed back the other direction and could see that two other people had passed Turq as well. I knew these guys had started a ways back from me, so if they caught him already then that meant they could catch me if I didn't get to work.

I bumped up my exertion level and tried to really hammer on the way back. We had been riding into a light headwind but at the turn no one got nearly the amount of push we had all been hoping for.

They way back in felt extremely fast. Other than one incident where a dog was standing in the road in front of his house. He would bark at a cyclist and run with them as they went by. Once they were out of sight he would stand and wait for the next one coming the other direction so he could run and bark at that person for a moment. Damn dog made me hit my brakes just to make sure I didn't hit him. Grrrrr...

Coming back up the last steep hill I could see the water tower near the school off in the distance. I was starting to run out of gas but once I could see the finish line in sight I gave it everything I had left and sprinted through.

Pedal harder.

Coasted around the school as I let my heart calm down. Talked to Jack for a second and found out that old man had spanked me by over a minute. After a lap around the parking lot I got back on the road and waited for Turq to finish.

We road down the country road and into a small community before we turned around and headed back to the school parking lot. Once we finally racked our bikes we stood around and talked to the other racers before the awards ceremony.

Everyone seemed to of had a good time and I think there will be a really good turn out for the TT next month. The awards were nice because instead of trophies or medals they gave out free entries into the next TT! How cool is that!?! I won the entry for this race at the RBM tri-night raffle and now my next race would be free as well! If I can just keep winning my AG then I'll never have to pay for this series!!!


Lack of experience. Poor hill training.


Great race. Perfect site for a time trial. Just needed more people to show up, but this was the very first race in the series and the weather was horrible the night before.