Philly Amateur Time Trial 2010

Brian and I began our venture to the Philly amateur time trial at 3:30am. I changed my pre-race meal and ate a chicken breast and onions. It sounds weird, but it significantly decreased my trips to the john and saved the drama of having to remove my skinsuit. After my warm-up rode up to the start line and watch Brian start. 

I rode up the road to get my bike in the proper start gear (54x25). I was unable to get the chain into the big ring so I manually moved the chain to the big ring and sifted the front derailleur into the proper position.  Up until this point, my front derailleur was working flawlessly.

When I listening to the countdown, I clipped in and wait to hear “GO”.  When the clocked beeped I dropped the hammer and heard a pop. I looked down to see my chain hanging inside my inner ring. I quickly unclipped and moved over to the side.

At this time I didn’t even have time to get angry because the clock was ticking and I wasn’t moving forward. I worked the chain back on the ring and made sure the front derailleur was adjusted.  I thought to myself “how am I going to clip-in in a timely manner to save the most time”. Then I remember a post on slowtwitch about triathletes trying to mount their bikes cx style out of the swim zone. I figured what the heck I might was well practice my cx mount. So I ran beside my bike, jumped and threw my leg over the top tube and nailed the mount perfectly. I was given a applause my the crowd and I tried my best to get up to speed.

I was riding strong and trying to mentally stay focused and to keep the start line drama out of my mind. At mile 3 I noticed something up on the road and was trying to determine what it was.  Up ahead was a pair of geese, one was standing on my side of the road while the other one was walking out into the lane. I thought “Great, I’ve already hit a squirrel in Erie, now I’m heading straight for a goose”.  Luckily, the goose moved farther to the inside of the road and stopped by the line. I was able to squeeze between the two geese and keep motoring towards the turn around.

I was satisfied with my pace until this point and I was quickly approaching the turn around. The course was completely closed to traffic; however, a half a mile from the turn around a car was on course driving in my lane. I thought “ you have to be kidding me, how did this happen?” The guy must have spotted my kit because he put his four-ways one and moved to the middle of the road. Luckily he didn’t block the entire return lane, but he was obviously confused as to what was going on.

After enduring these events, my ride went relatively smooth. I was able to finish strong and my garmin had me clocked at 17:54. When the results were posted, my name was not even on the sheet. I approached the official and he said they would look for my time.  Five minutes later they came over to the sheet and penciled my name in dead last with a time of 20:45. I honestly laughed because I passed the rider in front of me.  It honestly didn’t bother me so I left with Brian and his prize money.