Race report: time trial UCI world final Wartberg south africa
I never thought that I was good at time trials. In fact this is only the second one I have done. But if you think that you are good, coming to an event like this will let you know.
A tt is just a way to manage suffering. I train hard so that I don't have to suffer (sorry coach). Problem is when you get into competition you have to lay it all down.
After a 20min drive I arrive at wartberg the location of the UCI Final TT with optimism. Really Arriving has to wait a bit as the traffic services are let say, taking their time. About a half hour of inching along the last kilometre and I'm at the venue! Wahoo. I still have 90 min to drop my spare wheels off, get the UCI official guy in the blue suit to measure and weigh my bike and get some spinning in. No problem... Not.
No one and I mean no one knew where to drop their spare wheels. 20 or so minutes of searching until I found the chase car area. Ok. Now weigh and measure the bike. Get neutral support to do their check. Ok... I have 30 min to warm up and get to the start booth. Have to be at the start booth 15 min before so... 15 min warmup. I'm old damit. I can't do anything in 15min.
It should be said that I came to south Africa without a time trial bike. I don't even own one anyway. So I'm racing this on my road race bike. They call this Merckx style. The guy who weighs my bike tells me that there are only three competitors that have bikes like mine today. That's 3 out of about 250. This means that I'm unique of course and not stupid. Others may disagree. But if it was good enough for Eddy.... It good enough for me.
Ok. Warm up and onto the start ramp I go. I have never used a start ramp. I have visions of me falling over and off the 5 foot ramp when dude lets go of my seat. I just hope that this goes off without something really embarrassing happening.
It's my turn coming up. So all the other guys get this awesome announcement. Like "here's Sven from Norway, he's a household name in his country. Sven has won 7 tt championships in Norway and is here to claim dominance and win the jersey". Awesome Sven. Great guy and legs like friggen old growth trees. I get up and the announcer looks at me. Looks at his notes. Squints. Buddy! Spit it out we only have 30 seconds left! "here's James Ingum of Canada riding for ( I sit upright so he can read my jersey) , Velomnoten. I say to him Velominati. He says something like Veluminati or some thing like that. Then says, "James qualified 25th in his country". Ok thanks dude. No household name and I'm like way down there, thanks.
5-4-3-2-1: Race Report
The tt course is not flat. Not at all. With 350 meters of climbing (that's 1000 feet for you non metric types) its downright hilly. It's 25.6 kms long.
The start is flat for about 100 meters and then changes to a 5% hill climb for 2 kms. I should mention that about the same time you hit the hill, you get the full blast of the 30k wind right at your face, brutal!! This wind will be with me for 23kms. My short warm up really hurt me here. 98% heart rate and sucking wind as the hill finally flattened. And it only flattens for a kilometer when we are back at it. This time at about 6% for 6kms. Yup pure friggin pain. I was loosening up on this cLimb and it was going better. I looked down at my handlebars where i wrote my coaches instructions. At the end it said "let it flow". And thats what i did. Heart rate still at 98% but breathing was good. It flattens out at about 10.5 k. Then you make a right hand turn. I botched this turn a bit due to wondering what these guys were doing with the huge reds flags in the middle of the road.
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| In front of the start ramp |
Thank god for a change in direction!! Still windy and little rise in landscape but much better. Now another turn. Wahoo. Wind at my back and the speedometer is heading north. 45 then 50. Now I start to go down. 60k. Now 70k. This is awesome. A great feeling flying along and for the first time my heart rate goes under 90%.
There's a rise 2k before the finish of about 30meters. That seemed to go ok. Full gas for the last 750meters. Felt great! Finished in 42:15. This was 13th in my category. I can't see the results sheet at the moment but about 5 or 6 guys finished after me in the 45-49 age group. I was 7 minutes slower than the winner.
I was totally schooled today but I had a great time doing it and learned that I'm not fast and these guys are. Very fast.
I going to have a beer now.
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