Category: 4
Result: Mid-pack

Special thanks to Kathleen. She was a trooper hanging out for 2 hours in a barren town while I did my thing.

So the future Mrs. Sage and I took a weekend trip out East to Sattley for District TT. The course is a fairly flat, long "S" shape road. The extremely small town is about 6,000 ft up. There are cuts in the road for the snow. At certain points a cut about every ten feet. This will come into play later in my tale. The road is in a really beautiful valley that is very scenic. The weather was nice, sunny but breezy.

We got to the coarse early. Unlike Lodi I had the set up I wanted. I had my wheel set working with no tire (tyre) issues. I road around for a bit, fine tuned my seat and put in my warm up. I got to the line with a cool 8 minutes to spare. They were sending a rider off every 30 seconds which was nice. It kept me focused on catching the rider in front and just gave me more motivation.

My goals were simple. Trying for a sub 1 hour 40k and hopefully a top 10 placing. I get to the line. No ramp, just a dude holding you. I started at 9:38.

Within the first 5 minutes I felt the elevation. My lungs started to burn rather quickly and a much sharper burn. Little overwhelming at first but I kept the cadence up and kept going. The strong cross wind was also a factor. Due to the shape of the coarse I'd say about 2/3 of the way out and 5/6's of the way back it worked against you. This was the majority issue among fellow participants.

After about 10-15 min. my body was able to adapt and I picked up the pace a bit. In hindsight my proudest moment occurred about 25 mins in. I started to get huge side cramp. The type when you are jogging usually makes you stop jogging. I got a little scared that I might have to get off the throttle a bit to work out the cramp. But obviously to do that would be detrimental physically and psychologically. I told myself to focus on my breathing and luckily I hit a slight rise in the road which allowed me to work off the cramp.

Shortly thereafter I passed my minute man and still had my 30 second man in sight. Right after though I hit the section which most said was the most difficult part. There was a slight rise in the road as it swept to the right. It was also located straight on into the cross wind. It felt like I was pedaling and not going any where. (This sentiment was echoed by other riders as well). If I didn't have a rider in front to focus on I would have had no idea I was actually making progress.

2 km's later I hit the turn around. Now the wind is really against me. I dropped my head went up a gear and spun as hard as I could into the wind. 6 or so km's later I finally pass my 30 second man. With about 10 km to go the cuts in the road started to hurt. The bigger ones really hurt while the smaller ones, which were ignored at first, were now an issue. ( This was also a estimate said by other riders as well). They also seem bigger on that side for the road than on the other.

Towards the end I didn't have enough energy to pound out the gears. Not sure if I was dead tired or just at a low in energy at the time. I finished with a time of 1:03 and some change put me in 11th place.

Overall I'm happy. I just barely missed my goals and considering all the stuff that has been distracting me over the last 8 months. Makes I know I can do much better next time. I felt strong. I didn't die like some riders did by the turn around. It was a good indicator to see how my form is and how much more I know I can improve over time. Defiantly have some motivation for next time.

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