TR3 day 1

This was almost a story about a bad day. I usually find the first day of racing after the week to be quite rough - like the legs don't want to open up, or I can't get the racing rythym right.

I fully expected this for this morning's time trial so I thought "no problem, just ease into it, don't overexert early on and keep the tank full for the second half". Well - that plan lasted about 7 minutes, as I got over excited by the sight of my minute-man up the trail (probably a minute up, to be exact)and started to come apart.

Switch to full-on damage control mode, I'm going backwards and there's 20 minutes of sustained climbing ahead. I breathed a sigh (gasp) of relief when we turned away at the base of 'hyperventilation climb' and started descending, but this was just a cruel psyche-out designed to actually create more vertical climbing and further my suffering.

I suffered over the top and started onto my typical emergency plan consisting of a succession of caffiene gels. Soon we were onto the fun ridgemont trails - I thought riding the half-log skinny option would be a pick-me-up. I bypassed it yesterday and Erik made it look easy. I perfectly turned "easy" into "falling off the end and stacking hard into the opposing ditch". Ouch.

Eventually rolled to the far end and onto the awesome coal discovery trail - it felt different. It Felt fast. I was finding rythym and ripping the fast pump sections over roots and off-camber corners. Niki Romero essential mix was in my earbuds and his "Haters gonna Hate" remix was coming on... Then suddenly out of nowhere, my minute-man was up the trail.
Brain to engine room, engine room to caffiene-juiced adrenal gland. Set speed to turbo-nuke, now there's a race going on!

The next 15 minutes became a blur to the finish. End result eighth overall. Not bad considering some pretty strong talent in the field, most importantly no more time-trial racing-alone nonsense. Bike buddies, Chocolate milk, A/C, Olympics and Internets are all that's left in the day now. That's quality of life!