Race 15: Tour of the Catskills Prologue

Well...

2 mile uphill time trial.

Expected a bit over 8 minutes of complete hell.

I was utterly ready to go for it when we arrived at 10:30 ... however ... my start wasn't until 4:44:30. (I arrived early, because my carpool included a rider with a 12:04:00 start).

I am not good at 'sit around a wait'.

I spent too much time standing up and walking around.

I spent too much time in the sun.

I did not put on sun screen early enough.

I allowed myself to get too nervous.

My focus was minimal.

When it came down to an hour to go I got on the bike and took her for a spin up and out of the town the TT was staged from. Up I went and down and down and down and then back up and to the staging area for yet another bathroom break and more water to drink and then back out of town in a different directions and then paranoid about a missed start back to staging 20 minutes early and just stood there in the sun.

The legs had no snap in the warm up - despite a few hard out of the saddle climbing efforts and some high cadence efforts. I felt great on Wednesday. I felt good commuting on Monday and Tuesday and Thursday. Not in my warm up on Friday though.

And not in my race.

I had a stable and balanced held start. Accelerated the 20 yards to the 90 degree right turn and tried to kick it up that steep pitch. I felt like I was going about 2 miles and hour. The heart rate went up and I kept it there but the legs felt filled with lead. I crossed the line at 9 minutes exactly by my computer. I have no idea how that stacked up in the 54 strong women's field. Maybe not last but not likely in the top half of the field.

They routed us back to the parking area via a different set of roads and that turned out to be a pretty good warm down - except my chest hurt like crazy and about 10 minutes into the warm down I started coughing and barely stopped long enough to catch occasional breaths for at least 15 minutes after that. Still coughing now about 6 hours later.

I guess I worked hard, but I am a little bummed that I had no spark in the legs.

Saturday is a new day, and based on the course (we drove it today) it will be a tough one.

Bed time.