The Texas Time Trials

This weekend, I raced at my favorite local cycling event, the Texas Time Trials in Cleburne. For those of you who aren't familiar with the Time Trials, you should check them out... they have several events going on at once: a 500-mile randonee with multiple start times and both solo and team categories, a 24-hour time trial, a 200-mile UMCA National Championship, and a 100-mile UMCA national championship time trial.

Thanks to my lack of training lately, I thought it unwise to compete against a National Championship field, and maybe even less wise to tackle the 500-miler solo. So I settled for the 24-hour time trial.



My strategy was to try to get some sleep right before the event, so I could ride straight through. That didn't work out, however, so 5 hours into the race (about 11 p.m.) I was getting dangerously sleepy. I had gone out pretty fast, doing my first few laps in 1:10 or so, but I didn't want to risk nodding off on the bike and crashing, or worse, weaving in front of a water truck servicing a gas well in the middle of the night. Also, when I thought one of those black tar ribbons on the asphalt was a snake and tried to bite my leg, I figured I was entering the danger zone. I pulled off and told my friend Brad Flickner, who helped me through those first few night time laps, I needed some sleep.

He offered to wake me up in a few hours, but I was sure that I'd wake myself up, since sleeping in tents has never been all that easy for me. I told him to just let me sleep, which he did... until the daylight woke me up at 7 a.m.

So there I was, knowing I was in dead last place by multiple laps, and realizing I had slept a third of the race away. Needless to say, the pressure was off a bit. At this point, I also did not realize I had miscounted the number of laps I had done.

As I started that first morning lap, I saw my wife Victoria driving in, which lifted my spirits a bit. As I came back into the start-finish area, I told her about my excessive sleeping, and she very matter-of-factly informed me that I "probably needed it." That made sense, and I figured I was fresher than most of the other guys, so I went out with the intention of turning a strong lap. The lap ended up not being as quick as I had hoped, but when I came back in my friend Jeremy had arrived with a Whataburger... my first solid food in 16 hours or so. Excited by the Burger and a Coke, I jumped out to do another lap, but with my body still digesting I got overheated and had my most miserable lap of the whole race. Jeremy and Victoria tried to get me to do one more lap before taking a break, but I had to cool the engine a bit.

At this point I thought I had done 140 miles. I had about 6 hours left, so as a group we decided that 200 miles would be my goal, but 180 would be acceptable since my previous longest ride ever had been 160, in a year when I had trained far better. I went and did another lap, and suddenly felt like I was flying... I can't really explain why, but experienced ultra-distance riders all tell me the same thing. You're never done; if you feel bad, just keep eating and drinking, and you'll feel better. If you feel great, keep eating and drinking, because eventually you'll feel awful.

That lap turned out to be nearly as fast as my first couple, so I was really encouraged and did another... just as fast. I had done 180 (I thought), and had two hours left to knock out another 20 and reach my goal of 200. I made it around with 45 minutes to spare. I had lapped 5 other 24-hour riders in the last 3 laps, so I knew I had made up a little distance on some of those guys, but I also knew most of them probably got a few laps ahead of me overnight.

Much to my suprise, though, Brad had been talking with Victoria and Jeremy, and he came up to me after I finshed to ask me how many laps I thought I had done. I said 10 laps, 200 miles. He informed me that in my overnight delerium I had forgot to count a couple laps, and that I had actually done 240 miles. That last lap moved me one place higher in the standings into 6th place.

Here's how I had the Masi set up for the race:



Mostly it's my regular set up; I only added/changed three things. I used an Arundel aero cage/bottle on the downtube, swapped my every day wheels for the very light and aero Zipp 404s, and added some shorty aerobars, which worked great.

Here's my 6th-place trophy: