Almost made it

It was pouring when I ate breakfast on Saturday morning. The radar screen was a splotchy, rainbow-colored mess. It was not exactly bike-racing weather.

It rained most of the way to Yutan, too, but based on how the storm was tracking, it would be dry for the start of the state time trial. I have a love/hate relationship with that course. Love that it's close, love that it's a reasonably low-traffic road. Hate the surface itself, hate the fickle winds, hate the host venue. At least it's only once a year (this year, at least).

My plan was pretty straightforward: Go out a little bit easier, turn it up in the second half and bring home the bacon. That strategy was based on A) a past history of blowing sky high in the first half of the race and B) the wind, which was blowing SSE when I rolled out.

Now is a good time to talk about time-trial-starting techniques. I tried to keep it low-key at the start. No use going crazy in the first 200 meters.

Eric had a ... well, he had a different strategy.

Luckily, though, Eric started ahead of me and not behind. That would have been utterly terrifying to think that was coming up on my wheel.

Controlling the adrenaline in the first five miles is always tricky, because you're psyched up and there's a rabbit 30 seconds up the road just waiting to be chased down. After about three miles, I finally settled down into upper zone 4 heart rate and got to business. As it turns out, I did catch my 30-second man around the 5- or 5.5-mile mark. Eric was next up, and though I could see him most of the way, I wasn't pulling him back.

At about nine miles, I was passed by Lee Bumgarner, who rolled by like a freight train. Until he snapped me out of it, I was in a bit of a little mental lull. I was still going fast, but I cranked it back up a bit after he flew past.

Fenster passed me next, which I was also expecting. I can do a lot of things on a bike, but hanging with the Big Puma in a TT isn't one of them. But I was doing a bit of math. Lee and Brady and Puma were ahead of me and Eric was holding steady just in front of me. Everybody else was already passed or behind.

When we hit the turnaround, I was expecting a bit of a push from the SSE wind ... except it wasn't SSE anymore. It was more like ESE, and pretty soon it turned to just plain E.

Shortly thereafter, my tank turned to E, too.

There's a hill that takes you out of the valley and back onto the upper, rolling part of the course. We had a tailwind for that hill, and I easily went up and over. The return trip on the rollers was hillier than I imagined, but I wasn't worried — I just wanted to keep the cranks turning.

Even so, I struggled to really keep momentum. Just before the right-hand/left-hand bend, there's a long incline. For one reason or another — the main reason probably being an overall lack of TT ability — that incline was harder than it should have been. And though I settled in again around the curves, the road was still pointed up afterward. And that upward slant was much longer than I remembered.

The fatigue and soreness of the previous 20 miles were taking their toll. I pretty much gutted myself in the closing miles, with the only difference between this race and a "good" TT being the speed. I was killing myself but still not going that fast. Three-quarters of the way through and the lights were about to go out.

I made it through, obviously, and ended up fourth in the Cat. 3 field. While I barely hung on for my time, Eric said he finished with too much left in the tank ... and one second behind me. It was actually that thought — probably being close to Eric's time — that kept me going in the closing miles. "Don't blow it. Don't blow it. Don't blow it."

If you look at the day's times, the Cat. 4 field was toughest through the top six or seven or so. I would have been fourth in the Cat. 1/2 field as well. But in the 4s? I would have been seventh. Start racing harder in the crits, boys — time to upgrade.

When you pull out Old Man Murphy's winning time, I was third in the Cat. 3 39-under category. This, somehow, is my first medal from at state championship race. For whatever reason (probably a lack of speed), I've never earned one before. I'm not entirely sure I earned one on Saturday, based on the fistful of Cat. 4 times that destroyed mine, but I'll take it.