Jack Frost ITT

So...the first race of the season came around, the Jack Frost ITT. I've done this race 5 years in a row now and really enjoy it as an early season fitness test.

This year was the first year I've ridden it when the weather was less than ideal. Temps were in the mid/upper 30's and at one time we had some sleet coming down while I was on the course.

Overall...this race was a mess for me.

It started out before I even got to warm up. I had my bike set up on my trainer, tested it out to make sure tension was right and waited for my time to get warming up. The time came around and I jumped on my trainer and some God awful sounds started emanating from the trainer...blown bearing!

Knowing Russel Cree @ UEF Fitness had some extra trainers for use and he's one of my teams sponsors, I took off for his tent. He had several trainers for use and I was able to get a good warm up.

Off to the start after my warm up things were going OK. Once under way, I caught my 30 second man about a mile into the race...however, I noticed my computer started cutting out every now and then. Seemed to go out for 5-8 seconds at a time and I don't know how many times it cut out during the race.

With the computer problems going on I just tried to pay attention to my HR and push hard to the turn around.

At the turn around I came in a little hot so I grabbed my brakes, but the rear wheel started to lock up and my reactions kicked in and I let off the rear brake and grabbed a bit more front brake...however on my TT bike I have my brakes set up backwards...so I actually grabbed more rear brake and less front brake resulting in me laying down my bike at the turn around going about 15 mph.

Getting up, I had scraped up my hand, my arm and my leg. I gave a "QUICK" glance at my bike and everything looked OK so I started to run around the turn around cone...but that wasn't working so I re-adjusted my pedals and jumped back on my bike.

Under way again...About 10 seconds later I noticed my saddle had turned significantly to the left. So I had to try and grab it between my legs and quickly twist my body to straighten it out. After about three tries I was able to get it into a sufficient position and was able to finish the race strong.

Overall I had a time of 28:29 for a 20K ITT...which all things considered wasn't bad. I was on pace to beat my course record of 27:52 had I not crashed and probably would have run close to 27:45 with good luck. But such is life.

All told on the day: One broken trainer, one set of bib knickers ruined, one broken buckle on my shoe, one ruined shoe cover, a fair amount of road rash. So it was a pretty expensive day on the bike. But on the bright side...I found out the trainer was bad when I had access to others and have time to replace it, my bib knickers were ready to be retired and I was able to replace the buckle with one from an older shoe I had retired. So for the most part I've repaired most of the damage.

At least one race is down and out of the way.

As for the rest of the season...I've still got work to do in getting the weight off. My power is good for this time of the year but I've got 15'ish pounds to lose and I've stalled out for the last 3 weeks or so...so I've got to do a better job of watching my diet over the next 6 weeks to get the weight off.

Next race will likely be Kings Valley, but I might race a Banana Belt race if conditions are good and maybe Piece of Cake if conditions are good.

For now though...time to heal up, drop some weight and add more power to my FTP.