I went to Cleveland, TN (just on the other side of Chattanooga) to chase some TBRA points and to do some course recon for the River Gorge omnium that’s in Chattanooga in a couple of weeks. Learning experience ensued…

Saturday- Criterium
So only 4 of us showed up. When the race started, I waited a few laps before attacking (the course was sketchy- one corner was a <90degree turn that included a mystery oil slick that had been taking riders out in every field up until my race). When I did attack, only 1 other was able to stay with me (Mary Mayhew). After a couple of laps of putting time between us & the other two, we play “let’s make a deal” and decide to work together until the last turn of the last lap-Â I figured it would be an OK move since I wanted good legs for the Sunday TT, and I also planned on doing some climbing as well.
Fast forward half an hour- Mary attacks coming out of the next to last turn rather than waiting for the last turn as we’d agreed. I get gapped and can’t cover before the finish. I get 2nd place and very pissed off at myself for being a weenie and making a deal in the first place. I was mildly annoyed at Mary as well, but I feel that I’m more to blame for putting myself in that situation to begin with. It should have been a work-my-ass-off solo finish, but I tried to take the easy way out & got burned.

Sunday- TT
At the state TT, Mary beat me by 8 seconds, last week at Allanti, I beat her by a fraction of a second. Sunday, she shows up with a sweet TT rig/disk/etc. (read- a few second’s worth of aero equipment). I was still feeling confident, but I can’t deny that our past close finishes were in the back of my mind somewhere.
I felt good warming up, and once I was on course, hit a good rhythm. If you’ve ever watched footage of The Tour, you’ve likely heard the phrase “Pedaling in Anger” from Phil Ligget. If you are wondering what this means, just search for a photo of me in this time trial (not sure if one exists, but you get the idea). It’s the first time trial that I’ve really rocked since I got my TT bike. I ended up turning a 34:14 for the 14 mile, rolling course (which would have placed me well in most of the men’s fields). I felt somewhat redeemed…

After waiting for a couple of hours for the results & payout, I joined up with a couple of the Velo Vixens (and a few others) and headed back to Chattanooga to pre-ride the River Gorge road race course. It’s gonna be tough, but it should be a fun race this year (as long as I can make it up the final climb before I finish singing “99 bottle of beer on the wall” in my head to keep tempo).