7:00 65 Degrees, 9:00 50 degrees, 11:00 40 degrees, rain, 12:00 35 degrees, sleet, 1:00 32 degrees snow…1:47:00 roll out of the start house for 17 miles of riding on a somewhat hilly course….2:36:00 cross the finish line.
The day started out awesome. As I was loading the car it was 65 degrees outside. Wow, how could the forecasters be this far off on the weather. It was going to be a great day. Picked Tom D. up and headed towards Cedar Springs. My great day slowly turned into a so so day. The closer we got to Cedar Springs the colder and nastier the weather was getting. I guess the forecasters were not that far off after all.
We arrived at Fisk Knob Park with plenty of time to pre-drive the course and warm up. I was not expecting how hilly the course was. The elevation profile on the website does not do justice to how hilly the course actually is. The start and finish are on the top of this huge hill and all along the course there are smaller “suck the energy out of your legs” type of hills. I am glad we spent the time pre-driving the course. By pre-driving the course I was able to formulate a plan of when to expend energy and when to conserve energy.
My original plan was to do a normal negative split race. Cruise the first 9 miles at 20-21 mph and then pick up the pace t0 21-22 the second half and finish with at 21-22 average. After pre-viewing the course that plan was going to result in a very slow time. The new plan was to average 22-23 to the bottom of the finishing climb and go as fast as I could the last 3 miles up the hill.
My start time was 1:47. I got in a good warm up and didn’t stand around at the start line for very long. I was worried about getting cold. Starting at the top of the hill was really cool. I hit 38 mph going down hill. The flat part of the course was a bunch of rolling, West Michigan style, hills that were more of an annoyance that anything. The best part of the course was the 6-7 mile section in the pine trees. The trees sheltered you from the wind, sleet, and snow. Coming back towards the finishing hill, I did a good job keeping my speed up while recovering for the climb up to the finish line. I had set my PowerTap to show average speed as I started up the finishing hill it was depressing to see my 23 mph average quickly drop lower and lower. I finished the time trial in 49:00.35 minutes and averaged 21.18 mph.
5th in age group and 35th overall is not a bad start to the season. Especially since it has been 23 years since I have competed in any type of endurance sport. Next up is the Willow Time Trial on April 25th.
