#10: Soto – stage 1, TT
Yesterday afternoon was the Edgar Soto stage race TT. I have never been a big fan of TT’s, never do that well in them. I guess the major problem I have is know how gauge the effort. Yesterday, I was handicaped from the start when my Polar speed sensor laid down on me. I had put a new battery in it recently and it was working fine, now it is acting up on a race weekend again. Anyway, it meant that I had to rely on landmarks to race the 7 mile time trial.
Outbound on the course is rolling and generally up. I hit the turn around barrel at about 9:30. I was looking for the 3k to go sign to start really powering it home, but missed it and only really powered home from the “1 k” sign. I ended up with an okay 18:23, which but me back at 83rd out of 110 finishers. That is about where I usually stack up in a Cat 4 time trial, but I was disappointed about my effort (I had too much left at the end).
As for my team, we all were in the bottom half of the standings with times of 17:53, 17:59, 18:22, 18:23 (me), 18:47, 18:55. We have our work cut out for us today, with our best man 1:44 back on the G.C.
Today is rolling circuit race. Last year I got gapped on the biggest climb and end up in a small group at bit off the pace. I hope we can keep most of our guys in the field this year.
