I had originally planned on doing a post about how important it is to rest, or at least how I deal with an injury or being sick. I was planning on doing the Tribbey omnium thing since the race schedule came out, but after the Joe Martin race last week, I got sick, and decided on Thursday to not do the race. There's been a couple times in the last few years that I tried to just train through, or do some races while I was sick. I know some people who can pull it off, but the result for me has nearly always been not good. I think the last time I ended up with a pretty bad case of bronchitis that ended up taking a full month and a half before my lungs could process a deep breath of air.
Anyway, like I said, Thursday was the last day to preregister for the race and as soon as I decided not to race, I was regretting it. Friday I felt a lot better, and as the day went on, I finally decided to go ahead and pay the late fee and race. The Tribbey time trial has historically always been on the same weekend as the Joe Martin stage race, so I've never actually done it. This year it was the TT with a 66 mile road race a couple hours later.
The time trial is a very hilly 26 miles, and the big draw to the race is the huge cash bonus ($2000.00) for the fastest time under an hour. I guess some guys have come close, but as luck would have it, nobody got it this year either. Christian Helmig probably would have got it, but he crashed doing over 40mph and got pretty skinned up. Jacob Lasley also almost got it also. He ran a 1:00:30, and probably would have got it, but he hit the same bad spot in the road that Christian did and went off the road and almost crashed. I didn't really know what to expect, so I started pretty conservative and slowly ramped it up as I went along. I was a couple of minutes ahead of schedule at the halfway point, but it was mostly tailwind up to that point. When I got to the 7 or 8 mile to go point, I realized I was going to have to average over 30mph the rest of the way to make it under an hour, so I pretty much started cruising at that point. With a couple miles to go, I remembered about the omnium points, so I got back on it hoping I didn't loose a spot or two by a few seconds. I ended up getting a 1:06:36
This is where things start to get a little confusing. I wasn't 100% sure how the omnium was going to be scored, but I assumed it would be by all the times in all categories combined. Just before I started my time trial, an official came by and asked what category I was and what race I wanted to enter. I asked if I could do the 40-49 TT, and if the points counted towards the 123 overall omnium and he replied "yes". I did the masters TT because all the categories paid 3 deep for the TT's and 10 deep for the overall omnium. I figured I had a better shot at finishing in the money in the masters race. So initially I got 2nd in the masters race, but the guy who got 1st for whatever reason decided to move his result to the 123 race, where I think he would be 3rd.So, that moved me into 1st in the 40-49 category. I didn't really understand the logic other than I think he thought he had to do the 123 TT to be scored in the 123 omnium. I was even more confused when I went to get my TT prize money and they said the guy gave up points and money moving to the 123 category??? More on this later.
I have to admit, I wasn't super stoked to do the road race. Towards the end of the TT, the weather was getting really warm. My Joule computer has a temperature gauge, and it showed 91 degrees. Hanging out for a couple of hours and doing a hot, humid, windy and very hilly 66 miles didn't seem like a fun time. I debated on taking 2 or 3 bottles, and decided on 3. I think there were around 30 starters. Rob, Jeremy and I all finished in the top 10 time wise in the TT, so I figured we all had a good chance to get a to 10 finish overall. Once the road race got underway, it didn't take too long to get hard. Within about 20 minutes of racing, the field was already whittled down to around 15 riders. Jeremy got a flat so he was out. It seemed like everyone had Christian marked and he was getting a little frustrated. Meanwhile, a group of 3 riders rolled off the front. I made an error in trying to bridge up solo, only to get caught out in no mans land for a while.
I sat up and let the field catch back up to me, and when they did they were going pretty good. A couple miles later, Christian attacked midway up a good sized hill and blew up what was left of the field. I think 2 or 3 guys were able to go with the attack. I got in a group of 6 other riders with Rob. One by one we started catching guys that were in the break that got popped. John Moore was able to join our group when we caught him, but the rest were all too blown. Basically we kind of just rode the last 35 miles of the race like that. We didn't really race, we kind of just rotated back. A few of the guys who didn't go hard in the TT were pulling through pretty hard, which started to take it's toll and make it tough to stay in the group. Rob and I started to skip our pulls to try and recover. I told Rob if one of us got dropped, we would just stick together and help each other in.
We finally got through all the headwind and crosswind sections, and it was all tailwind for the last 20 miles. Around 18 miles to go I noticed Rob was gone. It was starting to get really tough to stay on a wheel in the tailwind. I felt bad because I told Rob we would stick together and thought about stopping and waiting, but since we were out of the wind, we wouldn't be much help to each other. I picked up a couple of bottles in the feed zone, but with 15 miles to go, I ran totally out of water. I made it another few miles then I got dropped. I rode the rest of the way solo and I guess finished 8th or 9th? Not for sure as I haven't seen the road race results yet.
Anyway, after the race, I was looking for the the wheel truck with Jeremy's wheels. I noticed there was some commotion around the omnium results. I was hoping Rob and I squeaked into the top 10. I was a little surprised to find I got 5th. I was thinking the time trial points would be awarded based off time for all races combined, and they sort of were, but the race officials awarded separate points for each category. So, I got 13 points for my TT instead of just a couple. There were a bunch of guys that were not happy with the results.
I really liked the courses. I heard a rumor they might add a criterium on Sunday next year. Either way, I'm sure I'll do it again. It's also nice to finally have a baseline time on the infamous Tribbey course.
