I woke up shortly before the 4:40 am alarm this morning, five minutes before the coffee maker was set to start and twenty before I had to pick up Rich. As I waited for my coffee I fired up the laptop to check the radar. It didn't look too bad, so I decided the bike would go on the roof for the two-hour drive up to St. Francisville. We were also picking up Mignon, making for three people, four bikes, and a whole lot of wheels, so although I could have packed everything into the wagon, putting a couple of bikes on the roof definitely keeps things from getting too crowded.
The 5-mile Time Trial course turned out to be a fair bit harder than I'd expected. Since I hadn't seen or ridden most of it, I started out pretty conservatively, planning on ramping up the speed after the first couple of miles. All was going according to plan until I hit an unexpected long and steep climb just after the three-mile point. That's where I made the mistake of staying a too-high gear and trying to slog it out to the top. I ended up bogging down badly, dropping my speed to 21 mph. The effort left me unable to really get rolling again for another half mile. So my time of 11:36 was rather disappointing, leaving me tied for 6th place. I was surprised my placing hadn't been worse since the fastest time of the day was Matt Davis' 10:07.
The next stage was a short road race, substituting for the originally scheduled criterium that was cancelled for course-related reasons. There was a hot spot somewhere around 12 miles into this race, but nobody was quite sure exactly where it was. For two or three miles, Midsouth guys were all up at the front keeping the pace up in anticipation of the hot spot. I was trying to stay up there too so I'd have a shot at it. Out of the corner of my eye I caught something painted on the road, and when I looked up ahead I could make out someone standing on the side of the road at the top of the next hill. I figured that must be the hot spot and went for it. A number of people didn't, since there was not actual sign or flag or anything. I got the 2nd place bonus. The rest of the road race wasn't too exciting. There were a few good attacks, but they were chased down pretty quickly. Although I would have liked to have gotten into a small break, I was feeling pretty outnumbered by the Midsouth guys and I doubt they would have let a break go unless it had a majority of red and white jerseys in it. So I figured I'd just have to try for a top-3 placing in the finish. The sprint seemed pretty fast. I think the road there was slightly downhill, and I found myself in the 12 pretty quickly. Somehow I managed third in this one, so altogether I guess I got back 10 seconds of my mediocre time trial.
The GC currently shows me in 4th, although there are a couple of guys who for some reason didn't get pack time. I suppose it's possible that they dropped off the back in the last couple of miles, but I kind of doubt it. Anyway, tomorrow will be a repeat of today: up at 4:40, drive to St. Francisville, start racing around 8 am.
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