Day One: Done

At The Drive In blaring...and i'm set to write.

So today was the first stage. It was a daisy, got there, felt pretty good, it wasn't too cold. Dry. Saw the Masters (35+) go off. Gus Corona (Amgen) blazed the course for a 14:30-something time. Unreal. The trend of the day was that pretty much everyone did better than their time last year. It's odd because it was the same exact course and the same exact conditions. The only different variable was the lack of timing chips. Hmm.

I met up with teammate Tony, and as soon as we turned the pedals, the skies opened up. With every passing pedal stroke, it intensified. I could feel it intensify. I could feel it intensify. I could feel it intensify [can you feel it?]. It was raining, yeah. Tony and I got some sweet half-ass warm-up in, and come the start, I was freezing. Took off the soaked arm and leg warmers, and went to the start tent. One cool bit, here...I pulled off a track stand right as I was about to go. One of the officials said (to the other), "who's holding him?" "no one, he's doing his own thing..." Yeah. I liked that. Traffic lights in LA are good for something...tick tock, I set off. Nice blazing start. Caught the 30 second guy about 6 minutes in, the minute guy about 6 mins after that. I felt awesome, won't lie. Though the heart rate was low (cold weather does that), the power was great. I mistakenly sprinted for the 100m to go tent, thinking it's the finish, but crossed the line with a 15:40 on my stopwatch. About 20 ticks faster than my time last year, yeah. Stoked.

TTs, though...you don't know how you went 'till you wait in the cold rain (okok...tony's warm + dry car, but still, we had to walk from the parking spot to the results table a couple times) for an hour after you finish. 15:41. Good for 22nd. 1:30 back. So i'm bummed about where I finished, but can take some consolation in the fact that I did a bit better than last year. The team did real well, we all made the first sheet. Skye killed it for a 15:20, top result on the team. My amgen recruit! Yeahha! Lots of racing left, however, and I'm burning to race. Nice warm up today...