Dismal Dash

    I had to get up at 4:00am on Sunday morning, the 14th. To make it worse, it was the night of the time change, so I lost an extra hour of sleep. I gather my stuff and was off to pickup fellow teammate John Tardy. Three and a half hours later, we finally arriveed in Suffolk, VA. There we met up with Eric, our other team member racing that day. Cat 5's were going to be the third group to start. The course was a fairly flat 12.5 miles out and 12.5 miles back. I was the first of our team to start. Heading out, I was immediately hit by a steady headwind. It made the first half very difficult, but coming back was much easier. I had saved a little bit of energy to push hard over the last 5 or 6 miles. I even passed one of the hardcore time trial guys that had passed me on the way out. These guys have dedicated TT bikes with full carbon fiber wheels, teardrop helmets, and do TT's all the time. When I finished, I was surprised how tired and sore I was. It's hard to pu out constant 100% effort for an hour and 9 minutes, but that time put me in 14th place out of 49 racers in my class. Eric came in at 26th and John was 40th. Everyone had fun and even with the wind, the weather cooperated, keeping the rain away. I think I am going to do more TT's. There's another flat TT in Chesapeake in April, the Mill Mountain climb TT, and the Wintergreen ascent.