Club TT Champs

5 merry Valkyries took part in the Club Time Trial Champs this afternoon. And I, for one, can honestly say that I'm now well and truly shattered.

Let's set the scene: the race started at 1pm. It was about 10 degrees, although the apparent temperature was 2.2, with a fresh and fierce NW wind blowing at around 35-45kph and blackened sky (wish we'd taken some photos!). Great conditions for my (and most, if not all, of the other girls) first time trial. Brrr!

We took off in 30 seconds intervals from Casuarina Sands. It was a "held" start (where the organisers hold your bike until your time is up and then you roll away). I know a few of us were a bit nervous about this having never done it before (I was really wishing I'd attended the skills session where this was practiced!). It was a little strange when I initially took my 2nd foot off to clip in, but I trusted the nice man who was holding my bike when he said that if he let me fall he'd make sure I fell on him so my landing was well cushioned. Or something... It was actually quite good doing the "held" start as, according to my Garmin, the incline coming out of Casuarina Sands to Cotter Road is up around 20%!

From Casuarina Sands we turned left onto Cotter Road and went straight uphill. Strangely the uphill sections were the pleasurable parts of the ride! After climbing up from the Cotter we proceeded past the Mt Stromlo turn-off to Uriarra Road where we turned left. It was all good until the sweeping bend to the left before the turn-off to SFP at which time we went straight into the most massive headwind. Ouch! I was grinding those gears in a way that Simon would have been proud if it had been a hill climbing session. But it wasn't. It was a TT. :-(

Things improved a bit going down towards Uriarra Xing, thank goodness. And it was nice seeing the familiar face of Paddy, our honorary Valkyrie, riding in the opposite direction giving us all a cheer as he went by. Next time you race with us Paddy!

It was after we climbed out of Uriarra Xing that things got really tough. It was a brutal headwind the whole way along the false flat towards Uriarra Homestead. I was going slower along there than I'd been climbing out of the Cotter! I was watching the odometer pretty solidly during this stage, trying to break the distances up to make them feel more achievable, as it was really tough going.

Turning up onto Mt McDonald for the final couple of kms was welcome relief. The wind was finally behind us again and we were all travelling faster up Mt McDonald than we had been going on the false flat! Phew! The only problem I had at this stage was figuring out the finish. I'd relied on the published 31km to get me through that false flat pain, but come 32km I was still going. When was the suffering going to end?! Finally at 32.5km it was over. It was such a relief, but also a bit anti-climactic, as there was no one other than the race organisers at the finish (everyone rolled back down to Casuarina Sands rather than waiting at the finish). Finishing was a bit of a double-edged sword. Suddenly we all started to realise how cold it actually was out there. Rach asked what the "stuff was floating through the air that looked like floating rain". We decided it couldn't actually be snow as it was still technically a little too warm, but it really wouldn't have been far off. My teeth were chattering and my whole body was shaking on the descent down Mt McDonald back to Casuarina Sands. I think I actually got quite a good ab-workout today from clenching my gut while shivering so hard!

And us Valkyries dominated! There were I think 9 women racing, of which 5 of us were Valkyries (go team!). And we posted some v impressive results:
* WB - LisaK 2nd; and
* WC - Rach 1st, Anna 2nd, Cheska 3rd, LindaR 4th.

And of course half of this is because of Rach's enthusiasm and encouragement which got not just me out (which believe me is no mean feat!), but another 3 of the Valkyries too. So cheers Rach - not only club TT champ, but great ambassador to boot. :-)

And now to back-up for the Wagga handicap tomorrow...