A challenging Record

Today’s entry is dedicated to Bones MacKenzie, who, after years of fielding my avoidance, finally got me to ride his disc wheel.

This morning, for some reason that is beyond me, I got up at 5:30 a.m. to participate in the Paula Higgins Memorial Record Challenge USCF District Championship Time Trial in Moriarity, New Mexico.

Of course, I dusted off my neon yellow and purple corporate logo’d jersey that I wear once a year to pretend that I’m cool.
Mr. T, however, was even cooler—wearing an HIC rash guard that is almost as old as he is (it was given to me as secondhand-used in 1987 to promote my fledgling pursuit as a surfer—you can imagine it as pretty aerodynamic on Mr. T).

I drank coffee.
I even stretched.

After that, I didn’t give my race or race strategy another thought.
Kind of the way, that I hadn’t given it a thought all year, until Mr. T surprised me by telling me we had a competition this weekend.
Huh?
I thought I was done with competing after I had done Barb’s women’s-only half-Ironman distance race on August 4th.
I actually had hoped I was done, after I completed the Honu half-Ironman race on June 3.
I had gamely made the best of the F-1 whatever-distance race on August 26.
Aren’t I done yet?

As with all good triathletes, I haven’t been training much. Although, this year, it’s true. After the Honu, I became subtly ill.
For five weeks.
It lasted so long, it scared me.
I was only able to complete Barb’s Race because,
1) I had a good base from doing the Honu in June, and
2) I stopped training long enough for my body to finally get better.
Five weeks of being ill.
Two weeks of no training.
Then Barb’s.

Now, I get to try to set a National Record.

Last year I was Age-Group 45-49 State Champion, merely by dint of being the only one in my age group.
This year there were over one hundred starters.

The pretty paper certificate I received shows that I rode 40k (24.854848 miles) in a time of 1:08:04.21
That’s something like 21.9 miles per hour.
I am mightily disappointed. So much so, that I can’t even enjoy the fact that I beat last years time of 1:12:24.17 by 4 minutes and 20 seconds.
Now, that’s bad.
Secretly, I was hoping to go under 1:06:00
OK—not really--that’s just a number I arbitrarily chose, about five miles into the time trial, when I was supposed to be cycling my heart out, but my mind was focusing on everything but the ride and I was feeling like “when is this going to be over,” and “I can’t believe I put myself into this situation again,” and “It sure would feel better if I would just stop right now.”
Really, I wanted to break one hour.
Hah!
At my age and ability, that will never happen.
My Greatest Admirer thinks that of course it can.
Nothing like a little pressure.

I do hope to be like Martha Hanson, who at 85-plus, truly is in the record books.

She was there today, in a national champion stars and stripes jersey, spare and spry, setting another national record.
The second national record was set in the 70 plus age group.
I, on the other hand, was beat handily by over 7 minutes by the first place finisher in my age group--a woman who I have never seen before (that’s the usual way, isn’t it—work your behind off to beat the local competition, and then someone new shows up…), and who, at the speed she rides, I will probably never see again.
She is about 4 feet taller than me, so I figure she has an advantage (us little people can do that you know—find ways to make our littleness a handicap AND advantageous).
Sigh.
Maybe, when I am 85, I will be truly pleased with my accomplishments.
On the other hand, maybe Martha Hanson wanted to do better also.
I bet she has a pretty competitive streak.

The long and the short of it all is that, next year, I should probably train for the darn thing. Then I truly will have a valid reason for being disappointed.