Triple T (OBRA TTT championships)

On Saturday, I pretended to be a hardcore cyclist. Heather, Gretchen, Sarah, and I all lined up for the Oregon State Team Time Trial State Championships in the Women's Cat 4 division. My team, Pacific Power/Blue Sky, hosted the event just East of Corvallis on the country roads that are laid squarely out across the Willamette Valley. And it was a beautiful day, not to windy, not to sunny (after all it is Oregon), and not rainy (are we sure it was Oregon?).

The start went smoothly with Sarah lined up on the inside, Gretchen, then Heather, then me. At least it was better than our practice on Friday in which I snookered my lady lips when I missed clipping in to my pedal on the Orbea. Rookie move. Sarah took the first pull and we were keeping to 30-45 second pulls on the front as we got into the groove of following each others wheels ...in aerobars ...through turns. The course was laid out as a 7-mile square, but along the route the road took several dangerous Z-curves and had a few small hills tossed in for good measure. About five miles in to the first lap we made a few adjustments in the order and Gretchen got behind Heather and started pulling off with her in the pace line. This happens occasionally when a rider isn't strong enough to take a pull, but we still wanted her there because she is our teammate and it is always better to draft behind three than two.

Heather and I started taking 2-3 minute pulls on the next few laps. Sarah was in front of me and when she pulled off I waited about 10-15 seconds for her to jump back on before picking up the pace. We passed two women's teams in the second lap, one was the other Pacific Power Team and one was a very competitive Senior Women's team. Actually, we passed the Senior Women just after the first lap and then they passed us back going into a little head wind and uphill during my pull! Oops, they were some seriously strong women. It happened when we were trying to figure out our new order, but once we got back on, we were able to pass them back.

On the third lap, we were gaining on another Cat 4 team, the Poplollies, when all of sudden their fourth rider went tail over top, bike flying through the air (they really aren't meant for that) and she went down in a heap. You never want to see stuff like that. We found out later that she just crossed wheels with the rider in front of her. It happens.

On the fourth and final lap, we were all breathing hard (even me) but somehow managed to find another gear. I pulled through a slight section that had the biggest hill on the course and then moved to the back to rest up for the final straight away. It layed out perfectly for me to be pulling through the last sort-of-long-straight-away before the final turn in to the sprint finish. As soon as I got on the front, Heather yelled out "get ready to haul!" and we picked it up to 26 mph. I felt like Lieutenant George Hincapie pulling Lance along (even have the height thing going). I pulled off just before the curve and Heather picked the perfect line to maintain our speed. On the straightaway it is the third rider to cross that stops the clock, so our pace line fell apart as I used Heather's lead out to pull Sarah and I around in the final meters. I nearly gave myself asthma pushing to the finish, but it was such a rush!

After the excitement of the race, I sat back and volunteered at registration and then was asked to go out and marshall the course near the finish line. It's great day when I get to race and volunteer (makes it a lot easier to meet my volunteering quota).

The men were racing and the finish line happened along the course so that teams that had just finished were slowing in front of teams that had more laps to go. I got to yell a lot for riders to get out of the way. Most of them looked at me with barely comprehensive oxygen-debt blank stares but still followed my direction (I must look authoritative). Sadly, complicating the issue was a finish line bike crash that took out a whole team of four riders. They all should be fine, but I think two were taken to the hospital.

Be safe out there!