Millersburg Stage One

I've been looking forward to this race for a while. It's a well-run omnium down in Amish country in central Pennsylvania. One of the only races where they do a complete rolling enclosure and you get to use the entire road. The whole town comes out to support the race and you feel appreciated. It's great!

I really wanted to race Masters but the only age group was 45+ and I have a few years yet to go for that. Hence, Pete and Dave would be in that race together and I was on my own in the M3/4. no problem, right?

Well, maybe.

As it turned out (this is great for the promoter but not so great for me) we had 97 guys in our field. I thought that was a bit large. I was right about that.

The first stage is a time trial of 9.6 miles. I felt strong going in to it and had to really keep from going too hard at the start. After the initial descent it flattens out nicely and I was able to get into a good rhythm. Glancing at the computer yielded some strange info though. I was doing something like 27.5 mph on the flat (at a fairly mediumish power level). It must be a tailwind....

So I tell myself to "friggin' SAVE it for the way back". Good idea. It was tough just to make 25 on the way back and I gave it all I had, passing my minute man but also getting caught and passed by some guy who was really cranking.

Crossing the line in full uphill sprint mode I felt like I had done a good TT and did a few cooldown laps around the town square waiting for the hyperventilation to stop.

As we all returned to our van I realized that I had forgotten to hit the interval button and hence had no info to work with, so the waiting game began as we got set up for the crit.

A few hours later they posted the results. 46th. meh. It's going to be a long weekend. The winner in our field was around three minutes faster at over 29mph. I think this is a majorly stacked 3/4 field....