I love it when a plan comes together... Was that the A-Team that used to always say that? Anyway, I do and here is why. I actually went into this time trial with a game plan. Not your usual 'hold X watts' either. I mean a proper plan. Why? Because Andrew Patten, who has consistently run top five in the world for the individual time trial as a master, was chasing me for one minute.
Now I don't want to sound all negative and defeatist, but in a masters time trial (this race was 40 - 49 years together), if Andrew Patten beats you by a minute, you're a pretty good show of running second. So here was the plan. The ride out is a LOT harder than the way back (it is very hard), so I wanted to make sure that I didn't get caught before the turnaround. Then, I take a little breath of air when I see Andrew coming, then I make sure I don't get dropped. Easy game.
So if you haven't picked up on the boastful nature of this blog post yet, it all went to plan. I rode my guts out to the turn. Andrew was maybe ten seconds behind me at that point. I take a few deep breaths after the U bolt and when I get passed I make sure he is at about ten bike lengths or so in front of me. Then, my dear reader, I proceeded to eat shit for twenty-five minutes. We stayed like that all the way to the finish line with me in second place with a 52 min 15 sec and Andrew 1 min 06 faster.
Happy days...
