Church Creek Time Trial #2

Posted by Dan on 24. August 2009 23:19

Coming home from Millersburg, PA last weekend, Kyle mentioned something about a time trial in Maryland on 8/22. At the time, I couldn't have been less interested. About an hour later, I was looking at the extended weather forecast and trying to pull up the course profile on my phone.

The Church Creek Time Trial was the second such race against the clock to be run on that course this year. The first, aptly named the Church Creek Time Trial #1, was in June while we were doing the Amphibious Assault Crit and PLT #1. Needless to say, this was my first time to Church Creek, MD.

Tim and I left Norfolk bright and early on Saturday morning after making a stop on the other side of town to pick up Tim's aero helmet out of Wick's car. Our goal was to hit the registration table in time so I could get a nice 30 minutes on the trainer before my 11:20:30 AM start time. We got there around 10:30 and the start line was 5 miles from the parking lot. I quickly got the bike set up and changed into my super suit. Tim pinned my number on while I drank Gatorade and made a half-hearted attempt at warming up. We finished and threw the bike in the back of the Explorer and Tim drove me to the line. I had enough time to unload the bike and make a few last minute tweaks before it was time to line up. I made it to the start house with literally 40 seconds to spare before taking to the road for the 40K Men's Cat 4 ITT.

The wind was pretty calm when I started and I quickly got my pace up to roughly 28 mph while keeping my power below 300 watts. The first 15k or so went very smoothly. Then I made the first turn and the pavement, if that's what you wan to call it, turned churlish. There were brief patches of asphalt that seemed like 10 foot patches of heaven. Unfortunately, there weren't many of them. After the second turn, the road became a little better, and I use the term 'better' very loosely, but there was a wind. Not very strong, but strong enough. I'd gone past the half-way point and turned on the gas. After the half-way point, I continuously asked myself, "Can you go harder?" and if the answer is "Yes", I'd go harder and make a note to flagellate myself for not lying when the race was over. The finish finally came into view and I made that last desperate effort to shave milliseconds off my time.

Following my ITT, I coasted up the road a bit and collapsed in a parking lot near the start house. Tim met me there with more Gatorade and a banana which I cautiously consumed lest my body reject it in a spectacular technicolor display. We rested there about 20 minutes and then made our way to the start house for the Men's 35+ Team Time Trial.

When we rolled up to the start line, a group of four were lined up and ready to depart. The fact that they had twice as many people as we did was a bit intimidating. They took off and we had two minutes to line up and get ready. I started a new interval on the PowerTap and prepared for Round 2. What I didn't realize is that I inadvertently changed the display from speed to average speed. When we started, I couldn't figure out why we were only going 23 mph while putting out 350 watts. It took a while to figure it out because I wasn't spending a whole lot of time staring at my computer. Tim took the lead and I set it straight. We were going 28 mph. Excellent.

Somewhere on the first stretch, we ran into a small car accident. Apparently, a north-bound Corvette crossed the centerline and t-boned a south-bound Suburban, pinning it up against a tree just past the ditch on the right side. Then it burst into flame. There were stopped cars and spectators/victims standing around and a mess of broken glass and Corvette parts all over the road. I won't lie, what I saw out of the corner of my eye as I raced through was pretty spectacular, but not enough to stop. Tim slowed a bit, but then caught back on and we were back on our way.

We took roughly one minute pulls. Even in a high-speed, low-drag time trial configuration, drafting still rocks. We were both hurting after the third and final turn with maybe 9 miles to go. Knowing the end was near helped considerably. The pace picked up as we pushed through the pain. I think we were both sprinting in the aero position at about 31 mph when we crossed the line. And that was that. We collected our things from the little parking lot and rode the 5 miles back to the car, registration, and most importantly, results.

Results finally came out: for the ITT, I got second place with a time of 0:57:16.95 and average speed right around 26 mph. For the TTT, we won with a time of 56 minutes and some change. Our average speed was about 26.5 mph, give or take. Good enough for a medal and a C-note.

And that was our Saturday. Next race is the Bare Bones Training Series.