Valley of the Sun

Back from the race. Well, we (the team) stayed with Sean and Stephanie Stepheson and Travis and his wife also put some of the riders up this year. This was the fourth year in a row that I have stayed with the Stephensons, making for a feeling of home while racing. I drove up with Adrain, Anna (adians girlfriend) and Aron on Thursday morning and stayed in Blythe, Ca. The next morning (friday) we woke up went for an ez 45min. spin and then headed for the grocery store for breakfast. Once we had a chance to fill the belly we headed for Phoenix and the time trial that afternoon. We arrived about 2 hours before Annas send off which was the first person in our car to go so we were there in plenty of time to get dressed and warmed up. Since I do not have a time trial bike as of yet I warmed up on my road bike and waited for a teammate of mine to get done with his TT before I could get on it and go to the line. I was almost done with the warmup, and had about ten minutes before my send off, when Stu rolled up. So we did a NASCAR style pit change (raise the saddle height, change the pedals). To get the bike ready and push me off to get to the line in time to go. I roll upto the line with about 3 minutes to spare, As I think to myself "perfect timing." The only thing that is a rye is I can not seem to get the HR to pickup on the HR monitor that is strapped to Stus handle bars. So, I think to myself. This is going to be an RPE ride today (Relative Precieved Exertion/ race on feel). Which is what it was. Now I had the National Time Trial Champion starting 30 seconds behind me, so this was going to be a challenge. My goal was to have a stellar ride and not get caught by Karl Bordine. I was doing what I planned and riding hard and was not getting caught at the turn-a-round,my speed felt goo but still trying to find a position on the bike that I felt I was getting the most power out of my pedaling ,. Then about 2km after the turn I saw out of the corner of my eye his starts and stripes skinsuit. Now my plan was changing and I just wanted to keep as close as possible and then maybe pass him at the end for only about a 30sec. loss and a possible top 3 finish and in he game for the overall on the weekend. This was going to plan until we hit some slower riders meaning I had to slow down more when we went around because there has to be proper distance between riders in order to not get penalized for drafting this opened up a gap a little larger between the two of us and once he gained a little bit more time it was harder for me to match his speed for the remainder of the TT and lost more time to him. I had a solid ride but ended up 17 on the day 1min down on the winner. This was better than last year where I was something like 1min 40sec. down from the winner and I still won the overall for the weekend. So I was thinking I am still in the game! I am workig on getting my own TT bike for the remainder of the season so I can put the hamer down at some of the bigger TT's and Nationals.
After the TT we packed up all of our stuff and headed for the host housing. This meant out of the rain and into a hot shower. When we arrived at the Stephensons we took showers and had an awsome dinner. Later on we watched some Television and prepared our stuff for the road race the next day and went over our strategy for taking the overall.