Dismal Dash TT

Aptly named for many reasons, the Dismal Dash takes you on the outskirts of and briefly through one of Virginia's natural wonders, the Great Dismal Swamp. It is also boring, relatively flat and open, with a lot of farmland on each side of the course, creating a plethora of head-, cross-, tail-, and swirlwinds.

My personal dismalady was evident in the first mile, when my right hip flexor started to cramp up- I backed off until I settled in and got up to speed, and consequently a higher heart rate than I had planned to race with. Not long after I got settled, I started to feel pain in my right IT band, a location I've previously had problems- problems that kept me off of a bike for almost an entire year. I decided it best to back off enough to allow the pain to subside, and this left me pretty much pedalling with only my left leg for about 40% of the 25.4 miles.

In short, this was likely my worst TT effort, ever. 25.4 miles in one hour and 14 plus minutes. The winning time in my category was likely around one hour and 1 to 3 minutes.

I am an advocate of not changing saddle heights or anything else right before a race. I've discussed this with teammates at great length. Saturday afternoon, I moved my saddle forward by 1cm (I had been riding on the nose, and figured this was a minimal change), and also lowered my handlebars by about 1cm as well for maximum aerodynamics.

I also had one other major problem- dehydration. I had been very good about eating well and drinking a lot of water leading up to yesterday. Thursday, Friday, and Saturday I ate regular meals at regular times. Yesterday broke the pattern. I woke up with less time than I usually do for a race day, and ate Eggo waffles. I then had about 2 cups of coffee, which is normal, and filled up my Nalgene bottle for the drive. I finished that at around 10am, drank another 16-20 ounces of Gatorade by 1pm, then didn't drink anything else leading up to my 2:30 race. I realised this at 2:28 or so.

I can at least say this- all other time trials this year will be better than this one.