I was approached by one of the guys from the HBA (Hawkeye Bike Association) Race Team about joining them on their B team for this years Time Trial, after giving it some thought I figured it would be fun to try. The course is 3 laps at 19.33 miles each lap for a total of just under 58 miles, and not really much for climbing. Winds were out of the south making the 2nd to last leg of the course very slow going. Since the team was just thrown together a week before, we didn't have any time to get together and practice, so we did a little warm-up to get things sorted out as far as pulling off and keeping a pretty solid paceline. We were the 14th team to go so we get to the line and get our countdown and we were off, all was going well until we headed down to the first corner and Jason ended up hitting the rumble strips which knocked his fork mount part of his computer off and into his front wheel, not the way to start off the race, so we slowed down so he could stop and fix it, and we were off again. We had a really good rhythm going through the first lap and came around with an average speed of about 23 mph, a little slower than I think we were shooting for, but we could make it work. Got a couple bottles from the feed zone and we were back in action, on the tailwind section we were going good, until Mack, our junior rider was hurting and couldn't get his heartrate back down, so he decided to let us go on without him, and come to find out he turned around and finally got everything sorted out with his heartrate, which kinda hurt us some because you only need 3 to finish and your time is based of the 3rd person to finish. At about mile 35 I cracked hard and slowed alot, which meant the other guys had to wait for me because we needed to finish all together, I went and sat on for the next couple miles to recover. We all decided we weren't drinking enough so we would go into the feed zone again, so before we got there I threw my 2 bottles where the boys were sitting, and see my wife holding up 2 bottles for me, not wanting to stop I had to do a 2 handed grab at about 15 mph, which I was able to get both bottles, and stay upright, according to my wife I got some props from the people standing around for being able to grab 2 bottles at the same time. So onto the 3rd lap, now with 2 new bottles, I was ready to go, or so I thought, man I was getting slower out there everytime I turned the pedals over, but kept going. We got to about mile 42 and Jason had a cramp hit him, and he actually had to stop for a minute to get it all worked out, I knew I couldn't stop or I would have done the same thing, so I kept pedalling at about 7 mph waiting for him and John, who went back to get him, about a mile later we were back together again, and John did pretty much all the work from there on out, John is a long distance rider, he didn't get warmed up till about mile 30, so it was great having someone that strong at that time in the race. He pulled us all the way back into the headwind, I did jump up a few times to the front, but Jason was still fighting cramps, so we had to keep a lower pace. At one point I stood up to stretch and my upper leg about locked up on me, so I sat back down really quick so I could keep going. We made the last corner and out of the headwind, and it was about 2 miles back to the finish line, John was pulling again, and we just sat in until we could see the line, then we increased our speed the best we could and cross the line in 2:43:59 with an average speed of just under 21. We got back to the parking lot, and I couldn't even touch my toes I was in some extreme pain, after about 20 minutes I was able to kinda move. Lesson learned, do more long rides before attempting something like that again, as my longest ride other than this one was 72 miles, and that was early April. Pics will be up sometime, I think we are off to bed. Here are pics of just the HBA team. More pics of other teams will be up later.
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