Friday, September 20, 2013

ITT - Cavedine Trentino


The time trial course was hard!   As the oldest woman in my age group, I started first. 

I was more nervous than I thought and realised this about 1km out of the gate when I was hyperventilating yet my heart rate was still well under threshold.  

Everything hurt and I’d only been on the bike for a couple of minutes.  I could not settle down for the first couple of kms and was quickly demoralised when 3 riders had passed me in the first 2.5kms – all of them on TT bikes and fully kitted out.  Sperm helmets, the lot.  All I had was my normal bike and a skinsuit. 

Riders left at 30sec intervals but in my fog of failure to warm up properly (at least I had ridden for 45 mins before hand, but hadn’t really pushed myself to point of pain) I thought it was 1 min intervals.  Still!!!

Here's the profile

A big downhill was good but I was on compacts, with no TT bars and Mavic Open Pros so I wasn’t as fast as I could have been.  Then a flat along the lake into a headwind where I got passed by a couple more TTers before the big uphill.  I’m much better at that and the woman who was breathing down my neck couldn’t pass me on the uphill which made me feel much better.

Then the last 5km into town was a slight uphill.  For the whole race I felt that I had nothing more to give.  Could not have gone faster.  Got to the end and then coughed my lungs up.  Still got the vestiges of that cold apparently.  And a bit of pursuiter's cough.

But the best bits came at the end, after I had recovered somewhat!  I accidentally lined up for a sports massage which was great!  Got a few lumps out of my legs from a handsome therapist. 

And one of the Melbourne women organised all the Australian women in the TT for a group photo.  There were 17 of us including a couple I know, both of whom seem to have done rather well.

Gaye Lynn came first in her age group, 65+ , in a blistering time and more than 7 minutes faster than me  (she did 46, I did 54 minutes).  3 other Australian women placed, along with 2 men.  I think the women are doing comparatively well!

I came 16th in the world - which could also be read as 16th of the people who had the time, inclination and resources to get there in the first place or ... 2nd last.  Couldn't have ridden any faster.

The weather is just fantastic by the way.  Sunny, warm but not too hot.

I had the best dinner tonight.  Things in Italy tend to run later than anyone thought, things don't quite go according to plan (including the timing of race events it seems) and muddling through seems to be the accepted rule.  So I stayed for the whole ceremony which finished at 8:30 and then went to find something to it.  Must have been in a difficult to please mood because I locked and unlocked my bike several times - even sat down in 2 different restaurants and then decided I didn't like the menu or was never going to get served because everyone was in the main square.  

So I rode my bike around a few streets and chanced upon a restaurant/ bar off the beaten track, chained my bike up and went in.  Best waiter ever stumbled through the menu with me, showed me the local specialities of Trentino that were vegetarian and I had a porcini mushroom thing.  It was balls of something, semolina perhaps, with porcini in them all sitting in a bowl of cheese.  Sounds a bit gross but it was really, really good.  And then had a chocolate thing that was sort of a souffle with a runny inside.  But the outside was firmer.  Who knows what either of them were.  I even had a glass of wine by myself - most unusual for me.  

Rode home late, a little tipsy, wearing black with no lights and no helmet.  But on the bike path.  So that's alright isn't it?  

(there's a picture coming - sometime).

3 comments:

  1. "So that's alright isn't it?"

    Must be, since you apparently survived. Apparently.

    LMAO here. :-))

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  2. Survived long enough to write the post! Let's see what tomorrow holds ...

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  3. One should always wear a helmet, you renegade! :)

    ReplyDelete