ABR Masters National Time Trial Championship – 32K
August 26, 2006 – Garden Prairie, IL
Masters 30+ – 6th – 49:59.960
259 watts – 23.5 MPH
In running, “masters” is a category defined for those over 40 years of age. Makes sense considering people are often considered “over the hill” at forty. For whatever reason, “masters” is defined as 30+ years of age in cycling. What’s ironic about this is that I’m getting routinely beaten by racers in their 40s and 50s. Contrast this to running, where I was rarely beaten by anyway over forty.
The good thing about being 32 is that it qualified me for another race. I thought the ABR Masters TT championships would have a smaller field than the typical TT because it fell on the same weekend as the Accenture Chicago tri. OK, I was right about the field size, but wrong about the competition.
The race was held in Garden Prairie, IL, just outside of Belvidere, and was staged from the Kishwaukee area school and offered plenty of parking and bathrooms. Getting there from Chicago was very easy, since it was right off I-90. This race was also my first chance to try my new, carbon Kuota Kalibur in competition. I got a few comments about the bike from other racers at the start and one even wanted to take a picture of it for his friend. Cool, but how would it race?
The Garden Prairie course is used by a few TTs during the year and is supposed to 40K. The race organizers entitled this event as 35K, but it turned out to be 32K. The course was fairly flat, with several 90° turns and a few bridges. Not too bad considering the roads were in decent shape. The weather was a completely different story.
Yes, August was here even though it was nearly over. The weather was 80 degrees F with about 70% humidity. That meant dew points were in the 70s and you needed a machete attached to your aerobars to cut through the air. To make things worse, there was a steady 15 MPH wind from the south.
I really felt the conditions on the way out. The course was not slow, but it was hard to get momentum going. The bridges over I-90 were worse than I expected, but things got easier on the way back with a tailwind. The humidity really sucked though. I felt great on my new Kuota, since it took the bumps and I didn’t lose much power on bike handling. The effect of the weather really showed, since I averaged 2 MPH more in the second half. After finishing, I was very excited with my performance and even thought I might make the Top 3!
OK, I forgot how good the Masters categories can be. Some of these guys are Cat 2 and Cat 3 caliber. I finished 6th, which wasn’t bad. Plus, my power and speed were a slight improvement over my last race. If anything, this race got me hungry for more time trials and to work on my conditioning for next season. Damn, and I’m going to be 33 next year. I really am getting old.