With me focusing on bike racing full time, there were no more excuses. The past two years, this race has always been held the week after an A race HIM, so while I always had the fitness to break an hour officially (I've done 58:10 unofficially before), I've never done this race as an A race.

Granted, this still wasn't a true A race for me as I'm more focused on Haleakala at the end of the month, but it does fit in nicely 3 weeks prior so I could get a little rest before this week leading into the last 10-12 hard days of training I have left for Haleakala. My PMC showed me at all time high fitness (even when in fully cycling mode) earlier in the week so it was just a matter of managing recovery a bit. I think I did okay in that regard...not the greatest as I did go for a few KOMs during the week, but did take Saturday off.

The goal leading in was to pace off HR and RPE. I'm a power junkie, but I also know from past experience that power never works well for me as my #1 metric to pace a race by. I know my HR should be around 180-182 for the majority of the ride, and RPE...well...I sort of have a feel for it as I shouldn't be struggling at all until the last 15 minutes...where sustaining power should get harder and HR will rise. That said, I was hoping to start around 265-270 watts, build to around 272ish by the turn around, and see if I could bump power up to around 275-280 by the finish.

The morning was windy (15 mph steady, gusting to 20+) with a little bit of rain. Pretty normal conditions for this race. It dried up a little by the time I started and I lined up right behind Bill who would be my main competition in the division. Never mind he's on a road bike with no aero bars...they guy's a beast.

I had a clean start, didn't go crazy and within 17 seconds my power was below 300 watts. I was bang on where I wanted to be...around 265-270 and felt very comfortable despite not spending any time on my TT bike in the past couple of months. Within the first miles I had already passed a couple of riders and could see Bill ahead in the distance. I was averaging around 25 mph, which was very quick considering the crosswinds were slightly into us.

By about mile 5, I had passed Bill...but I knew he was saving himself. I had not beaten him yet in a TT this year (although I have been within seconds) and there is no way I was going to beat him by minutes...if at all. I tried my best not to spike my watts as I passed...and sure enough, a few minutes later he passed back. I could sense that he spiked his watts to make the pass as he eased up a bit, and I passed him right back after getting out of his draft. This would continue about 4 more times but we sort of got better at not passing each other back right away and doing more even efforts.

The last 2 miles into the turn around it started to rain.. Didn't really impact speed much as the course is pretty straight but the turn around was a bit dicey. I took it really slow...probably lost about 5 seconds compared to if it was dry. I looked at my avg speed and it was still at 25ish mph...so I knew unless I totally blew up, sub 1 hour was in the bag and it was more a matter of making sure I beat Bill.

Now with a cross tailwind, we were hitting speeds up to 31 mph, but mostly in the 26-28 mph range. Compact 50/34 with a 11-26 was plenty of gearing, but I did find trouble finding a nice gear between 50/12 and 50/13. I suppose if I was on standard, I would have been flipping between 53/13 and 53/14...which is a slightly smaller jump.

Anyway, by mile 17, it was starting to get tough to maintain power. I was still somewhat comfortable...well as comfortable as you can be for a 40k, but was just trying to hang on. At mile 20, Bill passed me back and did so convincingly. I could tell he was putting in one final charge to gain back the 30 seconds that he had lost earlier due to our difference in start times. Within a mile, he had 8 seconds on me (I was counting down as he passed land marks. At mile 22, he had 15 seconds. Uh oh...doing the math in my head, at that pace, he would get around 40 seconds on me, which would mean a 10 second win for him.. I didn't want to try and make the final push too early, but it was now or never as he was slowly starting to get out of sight on some of the gentle turns.

I bumped my wattage up into the 285 range for the next 2.5 miles, and then unloaded whatever I had left once the finish line was in sight. The last 8 minutes I averaged 287...which is right about where I thought I would be for that stretch but Bill certainly made it easier for me to push that effort.

I managed to finish with him in sight, only 15 seconds ahead, which meant a 15 second win for me. It held up in our division (nobody else under an hour), and good enough for 3rd overall to Ray Brust's 56:22, only a minute back. Jason Smith, Mike Zagorski, Tim Marr, or the other big hitters weren't racing, but I was more than happy with my time.

I paced it almost perfectly.