Wisconsin State TT Championship – 40K
August 7, 2010 – Brighton, WI
Masters 35-39 – 4th – 56:31
269 watts – 26.4 MPH

The Wisconsin State TT championship was a little weird for me for a couple of reasons. First, I never had completed the race, despite trying twice. The first time I ended up with a flat tire with no spare, no I never started. The second time, I  broke my collarbone after the first lap. Thus, I was obviously a little nervous for the race this year because of the bad luck I had had in the past. The other reason I felt weird was that my dad was coming to watch. That’s not bad. It’s just that he hadn’t seen me in a race since college (and never in a bike race).

The “world famous” Bong course was used for this 40K TT, so I was well familiar with it (we only race about 3-4 times per year). There weren’t many riders preregistered, but there were plenty on the day of the race. I went through my normal prerace routine and opted to go without water ( temps were in the low-70s). I never used water in running races under 1 hour in these conditions, so I decided to try the same practice in biking.

With little wind, my main goal was to have a first lap faster than my Bong races from earlier in the year, then push it as much as I could the second lap. I ended up about 10-15 seconds faster on my first lap than earlier in the year, so I was pretty excited. I started to hurt the second lap from the lack of water, but I didn’t bonk. My second lap was a little slower, but I ended up annihilating my best Bong 40K course time by over 1:30.

It wasn’t my fastest race of the year, but one of the most gratifying. I’ve never been that fast on this course, and I crossed the finish line totally spent. I got back to the parking lot to find my dad. He had shown up in time to take some photos of me finishing, which you can see below. I was hoping to finish Top 3, but was still happy with my performance and it was great seeing my dad at a race.