Cycling Fans
Welcome to my new Race Blog. My business partner and close friend Patrick Buchanan (AKA "The Red Hornet") put this blog page together for me! Thanks Bro!
Moving forward I'll post my race experiences and other cycling narratives to this blog page versus sending out batch emails. So here it goes, my first post.
Gwinnett TT
Geri (my beautiful wife) and I packed the SUV early Friday morning, dropped off the kids at Grandma's house and headed north to Atlanta, GA. A buddy of mine from elementary school (Eric "the BIRDMAN" Rasmussen) and his family (his better half Stacey and his little girl Bella) live just outside Atlanta in Ackworth. Our goal was to visit with them, take in some sites and for me to participate in a short 5.6 mile Time Trial on Saturday which was only an hour away from their home.
A little background on the Birdman. Eric is one of the greatest guys roaming this planet. He is very warm and endearing, always makes you feel like you are the most important person in the room. We have been friends since the 4th grade and a fierce competitor. Back in the day (high school), Eric was the "man" on campus. He's an accomplished swimmer and started his training at a fairly young age. He essentially broke every major swim record at our school and within the state. He actually got his nickname from Larry Bird the former Celtics basketball player. Eric was shooting hoops and nailing every shot - so became the birth of "the Birdman!"
Birdman wanted to join Geri and I for the race on Saturday which was awesome as I knew he loved competition and racing. We all got up early after a pretty late night and headed to Gwinnett County for the time trial. We arrived right on time for me to register, warm up and line up. My official time to go: 8:13a.m. sharp.
I set my trainer and bike up (mounting your bike to a stationary trainer for warming up) and got a solid 25 minutes of spinning to get warm and to get the blood flowing. At 8:00 a.m. I would dismount, change and ride over to the start / finish which was only about 100 yards away. The challenge with warming up and heading to the start line is timing. You don't want to arrive too early cause you can begin to cool down while you wait your turn to go. Obviously you don't want to arrive late cause you could miss your start time - which I did unfortunately. The time keeper had 8:15 a.m. on his phone (according to satellite time). However, we had 3 cell phones saying only 8:11 a.m. But, I was able to slip into another position as a "ghost rider" and was off within a few minutes.
The course description said back country roads, slight elevations and rolling hills - sounds so pleasant doesn't it? I'm like okay, I can deal with rollers - no problem as I'm actually a decent climber. Well, in Georgia, rollers must mean something different cause I had some major hills to climb. With these short time trials my strategy has been to get up to race pace quickly and hold it - just HAMMER! Unfortunately, this strategy was a mistake. Just after 1.5 miles was a fairly steep climb I did NOT really anticipate. My heart rate was already revved up pretty high and by the time I got to the top of the climb I was exhausted and could barely catch my breath. For the first time I thought - "oh man, I don't think I can finish" - I had officially blown myself up. However, I settled down and pretty much purged all that negative self-talk. I just tried to stay calm and sort out my breathing. The race took place about 1150 feet above sea level. That may not seem like much elevation, but when you train and race at sea level, it just became very difficult to breath - it was like I just couldn't get any air.
Mile 2 thru 4 was fairly flat which allowed me some time to recover. But, yet again was another steep climb. I kept saying, this is ridiculous, how can you have this steep of a climb in a time trial? Plus, other words of creative articulation. I used my gearing to accelerate up the hill, but man I was moving so slow watching time just slip by. I got to the top and told myself just about a mile or so to go. I attempted to tuck in again and just try to push out some watts and finish strong as my race fans were waiting at the finish (Geri and Birdman). It took me 15 minutes and 14.817 seconds to complete this brutal 5.6 mile TT. I got 16th out of 20 racers in my category, Cat 4/5 (Men over 35+).
I was extremely disappointed with my results as I knew and still know that I'm much stronger and quicker than that - regardless of the terrain. What I had realized is that I executed poorly - in sports, it happens. I misjudged the course and that was my fault. However, I'm chalking it up to more race experience and better preparation for future races. Plus, "the BIRDMAN" wants me to come back and kick some tail next year!
Thanks for the support and I hope you enjoy the new blog page.
Adam
PS - at the bottom of the blog is a pic of me and the BIRDMAN!
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