USAC STATE TIME TRIAL CHAMPIONSHIP 2026

 Usually reporting on a time trial race goes: drove to the race, did it, came home.  Mention wind, speed, heart rate and maybe cadence.  Boring.  This time I'll dig into details.

First off, the announcement that the race would be held at all came late, but a pleasant surprise.  After my poor performance at Pace Bend I had hung up the time trial bike for the year.  I immediately got it down and scheduled some days to re-familiarize myself with positioning.  Also after Pace Bend I started working more seriously on leg strength, so at least I had improved in that area.  I had five weeks before the start.  One more thing before describing the day: I was also signed up to compete in the team time trial with my race leader and other teammate.

In the week leading up to race day the forecast varied between 30 and 80% chance of rain in the morning.  As I left the house it was 30% chance.  It's a two hour drive from Round Rock to Hempstead and I was in various degrees of fog the whole way.  I left at 4:45 and arrived shortly before 7:00 and set up my trainer under a canopy at the school a few blocks from the start line.  Check in was quick and easy.  As I turned around I saw the person behind me was Clif, a national TT champion from years ago and a really nice person.  He checked in and then we caught up with each other since the last time I saw him was before Covid.  He hasn't been racing since then but thought he'd give it a try since he just turned 70 and that's when the race goes from 40k to 20k.  

It was time to start my warm up.  Last year was the first time I'd used the trainer to warm up and it went so well I did it again.  Fifteen minutes just to get the legs warm, then fifteen minutes bringing up the heart rate and powering up the legs.  I can tell you now it never rained, but the humidity was close to 100%.  I ended that warm up, loaded everything back in the car and got out the time trial bike.  This was for another fifteen minutes of warming up my neck.  I also applied a liberal amount of Arnicare to my neck to help loosen it up and dull the pain that I knew would be coming.  Then it was time to race.

By being first in my category to sign up, I was guaranteed to be last to start.  Thirty seconds between riders.  Bob was first.  He is also the one who beat me at Pace Bend, the first time ever in the time trial.  Then came his brother James, then Whitney.  Whitney and James are both 80, thus the youngest in our age group.  Whitney is also my team leader and is much faster than me.  I knew I was competing for second place.  Bob had a 90 second head start, James 60.  My last minute words to Whitney were: :get ahead of them quickly and demoralize so they wouldn't go so hard."  Starting behind me was Deb, a new teammate, former national champion, and the only woman in the 75-79 category.  I've known her for at least fifteen years, as we did Senior Games together.  I fully expected her to pass me eventually.  As it turned out, I held her off by seven seconds.

I had a slight wind at my back going out and I kept my cadence in the mid-80s and speed low 20's.  It took a mile or so to bring my heart rate up to 145 (just under 92% of maximum).  When I'm in top form I can hold 90% for the whole race.  I have not yet achieved top form.  I was a little slow shifting to a lower gear at the two-mile mark, where there is a slight downhill, so lost a few seconds there.  Meanwhile, I could see a rider ahead of me and I knew it wasn't Whitney so thought it had to be James.  That brought my confidence up, in that he was less than a minute ahead, thus I was faster.  As we closed in on the turn-around at 6.2 miles, I passed the rider, who may or may not have been James.  It turned out that James didn't navigate the turn well and crashed.  Strava has me doing the first half at 21mph.

Coming out of the turn, I quickly dropped into my tuck and picked up speed.  The wind, still slight, was now coming into my left shoulder.  The next four miles was ever so slightly downhill and I expected to hold speed.  But the road turned rough, like a mini-washboard.  I tried going right, I tried going left toward the center line.  I'd find a smooth spot but that would run out and I be back looking for a better spot.  At the same time, my breathing became labored and heart rate moved up.  I had to sit up out of the tuck and slow my cadence or shift to an easier gear to bring it back down.  At the same time, I noticed the rider ahead of me.  That had to have been Bob.  I estimated at least a minute ahead.  My goal now became to hold that distance for the next four miles.  My heart rate would drop a few beats and I'd get back into the tuck and maybe try a lower gear.  The two mile "hill" came next and I took that fully sitting up, sacrificing some seconds so that when I finally got to flat ground I could hold my tuck and pick up some speed.  The last mile had the HR up to 150, but my power and cadence were somewhat erratic as the finish line approached.

As it turned out, my time was 42 seconds faster than Bob, so I earned the silver medal.  I am concerned that I could only hold my HR for 7 1/2miles.  Strava has my speed for the return at 17.8 mph.  In my mind I'm thinking I could do better, and so I'll adjust my training to see if I can.  But.... Strava has shown me what I've done here since 2017: 

2017-33:55 @ 22.1mph 

2018- 33:46 @ 22.1mph

2021- 36:47@20.3mph 

2022- 35:51@21.2mph

2024- 37:33@20.3mph

2025- 38:32@19.7mph

2026- 39:22@19.1mph

Oh, yeah, the team time trial.   We had a three hour wait before our start time.  A half hour before, I began to warm up.  It didn't take much to work out the kinks and stiffness.  My neck was really hurting.  I applied more Arnicare.  I needed something stronger.  I started moving through the gears to see what kind of power I had.  I had none.  I could muster 13-16 mph.  There were only two teams entered.  We checked the guys on the other team and saw times comparable to Whitney and Willie, in the 21mph range.  In the past, for a three-man time trial, you had to have three and the finish time would be the first two.  This year, you could have two or three riders.  Rather than be a dead weight to drag around, I opted to scratch from the race.  Our team took first place.

SENIOR GAMES AT PACE BEND

 Another year, another complaint about racing at Pace Bend.  This year was even worse, in that, for a myriad of reasons, I'm nowhere close to race ready.  But I dragged my body out there with every intention of just cruising around the course.  The Senior Games runs a one-day, four race agenda: 40K and 20K road race and 10K and 5K time trial, in that order.  Given my lack of conditioning, I skipped the 40K.

My friends and competitors from Fort Worth, Bob and James, were there.  One other racer who can beat me handily had signed up but didn't make the trip.  Bob usually beats me in the road race and I take him in the time trials.  But last year he was hit by a car and just recently returned to the bike.  He and James raced the 40K and Bob wasn't fit enough to continue in the 20 K.  After most of the racers had started their fourth and final lap, jumped in to do a warm-up lap to refamiliarize myself with the hills and how the wind would affect the race.  Shortly after getting on the road, James came up and we rode together for awhile.  When I advised him I was just warming up, he said oh, and moved on ahead.  But I kept him in sight and could tell he was struggling on the hills.  He was my only competitor in the 20K.

Due to time constraints, all the age groups start together.  I lined up close to the front.  The first mile and a half was into a fairly stout wind, so I knew the young guys wouldn't be going all out. Another advantage is getting clipped into your pedals quickly.  If you miss a rotation you will get passed.  I did not and was in the front group, tucked nicely behind a tall rider.  I fell behind on the last climb before the turn, but James was somewhere behind.  I spent the rest of the race checking my mirrors looking for him.  A young guy came past and I latched onto him for awhile.  I worked as hard as I could, but my speed wasn't there.  I ended up about four minutes slower than other times here.  As for James, I found out later that he took the turn too quickly and ran off the road and got some road rash.  Gold #1

For the 10K, it was one lap run in the reverse of the road races.  I stayed on the road bike because of the hills.  Because the races are chip-timed, there was no particular starting order, so I lined up first.  Once again, my best today didn't match previous days, and Bob had recovered enough to beat me.  James was being attended to at first aid.  Silver.

For the 5K, it was an out-and-back with only two climbs so I switched to my TT bike.  The reason I wanted to be first in the 10K was it would give me more time to recover before the start of the 5K, in  which I lined up last.  I was needing much more recovery time than usual.  It was also beginning to get hot.  I felt like I had enough fluids, but continued to drink.  Apparently it wasn't enough.

I was slow off the start, took my time getting into my tuck, and came out of it shortly thereafter.  I wasn't going fast, but after a mile or so, my neck started cramping.  There was no power in the legs.  I finished two minutes slower than my next slowest 5K.  I was resigned to silver.  BUT, James was even slower.  I don't know how, but two minutes slower than me.  I don't know how that happened.  I didn't talk to him about it.  So I ended up with first place.

I am concerned about how I felt in recovering.  Unfortunately, I'd left my heart-rate monitor hanging in the laundry room, so have no data on that.  Stay tuned.