Joe Martin NRC started this afternoon. We chose to drive the 300 miles this morning. Not exactly sure why. My reason was that I’ve been on the road for the last couple weeks and wanted to sleep at home. It probably wasn’t the best idea for a 8-10 minute effort.
I have been coming to Joe Martin since I was a junior. I used to race with Joe Martin. His wife, Nancy, is a friend. The race is over 4 days now. This year the hill climb time trial was not after the 2nd road race. I always ride better time trials the 2nd stage of a day. I must not warm up properly or something.
Enough of that. It was hot, mid 80’s and muggy. Super sweaty type weather. And the pollen is everywhere. When we were warming up, our eyes were watering. I haven’t been to a NRC this year, so it was pretty nice catching up with all the guys I haven’t seen for a while. Floyd started a few guys ahead of me. I haven’t seen him since……for a long while. He’s as friendly and goofy as ever. (Number folding photo below.)
Anyway, I rode up the climb a couple times and knew that I had to ride negative splits-Easy at the start and hard at the finish. I thought I was doing that until the last kilometer. That’s when I was going to punch i. And there wasn’t there to punch. I had to talk myself into standing the last 500 meters. I actually got on top of a gear, but that is the only high spot of the day. My arms were as wasted as my legs. Guess I was just out of oxygen. I think that is usually the cause of that feeling. I’m not sure of my exact time, but I think it is the slowest I’ve ridden here. The mid 9’s. Rory Sutherland won last year in 8:11 and it looked like he was catching Tom Zirbel half way up this year, so I’d assume his time is going to be + or – 10 seconds of last years time.
Brian Jensen rode under 9 minutes, which will be a good result. Not great, but OK. Tommorrow is a 110 mile or so road race. It’s supposed to be down pouring rain all day. And loose 15 degrees in temperature. I’ll actually look forward to that.
Thanks to Stefan Roth for forwarding the results.
Floyd's secret pyramid energy source number folding method.
Weighed our bikes at the start. Mine was .29kg too heavy.
Start. I tried to get him to let me off a little early.
