Race report: National ITTs

Dad offered to give me a lift to race venue, first time I had such support and I'm worried about my warmup...

So I reached the venue and saw many prepping for the race... What I didn't expect was the amount of foreigners... I mean, in my mind it was a National event... Than again... Shall not touch on this...

So I started putting on the race bib and timing chip...

The race chip is the blue thing at the bottom of my fork... I preferred the trifactor race chip as it incorporated the use of the slotting the race chip into the QR skewers.. Very clean and no zip ties required.

After setting up the bike and feeling a little awkward when asking one of the staff to help me pin the race bib on my skin tight jersey... I set off for a warmup ride... I targeted about 20mins of easy spinning, just to get me sweating and to try out the elevation of the route. I saw my speedo at 30km/h and wondered if my legs were ready... 20mins later, i felt I needed more time. But start time was closing in and I went to the start point.

After some anxious minutes because I didn't know exactly when was my turn, I was on the start ramp. One official grabbed my bike as I clipped in, and felt super uneasy with both feet clipped in but at a complete standstill...

3...
2...
1...

Wobble... Don't fall down!

random pic from spectrum cycling at how uneasy i felt the launch was...

*don't burn out in the beginning!*

I cranked, but not as hard as I imagined, steady acceleration, tucked into aero position and checking of speed. 35km/h... ok... relax... turn ahead anyway..

out of the turn, it was eerie. No one ahead of me, no one behind me. I spun the wheels more, hitting 38km/h on what seems like an incline...

Up that incline and down... Hitting 40km/h now... Feeling ok, shall hold this speed.

Hump ahead, relax... Ouch... my elbows still on the aerobars... ok will take it differently on the next lap... U-turn ahead.

brake hard before the turn and corner... Out of the corner at 22km/h... Seems so slow... Hard acceleration out of the corner!

Omg, direct headwind! 35km/h... This is hard.... 33km/h... Giving a hard effort, keep it up!

Passing the the start point gave me more motivation to pedal hard, U-turn point! Crank it up! Feeling better as I warm up... Damn the warm up was not enough! Never mind, concentrate... 42km/h... Nice speed, must be the tail wind.... Good stuff....
Than I hear the familiar whine of a disc wheel, whoosssshh, a ang moh passes not more than an inch away from my front wheel!  That was awfully reckless of him... I look down at my speedo... Still 42km/h and he is pulling away from me.
I know I had to keep my own pace, no burning out for me.
U-turn than 32km/h.... Push harder... It's faster when you push on the incline/headwind and recover on the decline/tailwind... (read somewhere on the net)
3rd lap, 42km/h down again, U-turn point, more confident at turning I go into it at higher speed, spotting the apex and waiting to accelerate... PANGGGG I hit a small rock sending my front wheel sliding out.... WTF. I straighten out and brake! GOSH THAT was close! I accelerate out and catch a glimpse of a camera man gasping... Damn... That sure ruined my confidence of cornering...

Up and down, with pretty much the same speed, on the 2nd last lap one of my thigh muscle feels like it's gonna cramp... hang in there!

On the last lap a guy wearing the same skinsuit as me overtakes me before the U-turn point. I corner faster than him and end up side by side... No drafting, but I'm supposed to keep 2metres away from him according to the rules... damn it... So weird... Riding side by side in aero position as we reach the incline..

Going down now as he pulls away from me... I'm saving up for the final stretch into the headwind after the U-turn point.

Hard effort after the u-turn point look a head and see the end... Push harder! .... 36km/h.... All I have got! 39km/h and I cross the finish......

Mad.... I pant hard as the official at the finish pit stop help me cut the race chip and tag me as finished... A bottle of isotonic handed to me, as I look for a place to sit down... Wow, that was hard...

After some rest I went over the result tent-age to see my time of 56 mins... An average speed of 37.5km/h... Pretty satisfied since the headwind was just so punishing. And just as I go off, Darren Low comes into the finish line 4th... With a very happy girl beside me jumping around... Apperantly, someone related to the National Time Trial winner that day.

Wondering if that will one day be me.

My own race support... Oh ya, I finished second last in my category... And to console myself I was the 8th Singaporean out of 25 riders... Haha, till the next race! Ride safe all!