By now, it's no secret that I'm faster on the bike than I've ever been in my life. I've done well in every race and broken every personal best that I've ever had.
The problem that I am having mentally is that very few of those records are over courses I am familiar with. Sure, I just broke my 40K record, but my previous record was not on that same course. Maybe it was easier than the one I had done before.
Yesterday, I was excited to finally be able to do the normal West River Time Trial, held every Saturday through the summer over an 8.2 mile course that I've ridden hundreds of times in my life. Between my racing schedule and the random rainy day, I have not been able to do this yet this year. Yes, the race two weeks ago was on this course but used a different start/end. I was finally about to get the comparison I wanted.... except for one problem.
The road which we use is closed to cars from 6AM to 5PM. The first mile and a half is re-opened to cars at noon, which are blocked by a pair of gates across the road (which are chained and padlocked in place). Whoever closed the road to traffic that morning closed those gates as well, blocking the road for us.
Our solution was to go around them. Once on the way out and once on the way back, each rider would have to drop from racing speed enough to make it onto the sidewalk/path beside the road (which has a very narrow curb cut to get to the trail), travel about 50 yards, then get back onto the road and get back up to racing speed. Looking at my download, I'd guess that I lost about 20 seconds going each way for 40 seconds total.
Other than that, it was a perfect morning. Sunny, light winds, temperatures in the low 60's, not too humid.
My previous best time on this course was 19:42, set back in 2006. Yesterday I did it in 19:32. Let me reiterate this for those of you who missed it: I was 10 seconds faster despite having to go around the gates each way.
I probably would have been under 19:00 otherwise. Of course, I have a race next weekend and won't be able to try again then. I just hope I get another good shot at it this year!!
