2008 Victorian Masters IRTT Championship

After the state masters TTT last month I continued on my TT training though to the Victorian state masters ITT. All was going well until two weeks ago when I was hit by a nasty strain of something alien. I was flat out on the couch shivering cold, 5 minutes later I was boiling hot - no fun at all. This had hit me right when I was putting out some of my best power numbers for 5/10/15mins too. Three days off the bike, three slow days getting back into it, I then had a week of anti-taper to get back up to speed. My power numbers showed that I was around 3-5% down on power going into the event, so I didn't lose too much with the flu disruption.

The course was relatively flat with a few bumps, 10km out and 10km back somewhere out in the middle of the country, so I felt at home. :) We drove the course before the start so I knew what to expect. The turn around point looked to be on the top of a nice long-drag hill, perfect! My goals for the day in order of importance were #1: Win the state M1 ITT title. #2: Beat every M2, #3: Beat everyone. Only two other M1's entered, great, I'd done my homework on the M1 competition but didn't know if any of them had transformed into TT monsters for the big event!? I had a great warm up, then rolled around spotting the rest of the Hawthorn CC MOTU Team from last month. Ren, Stimpy, and the Electrician. Final 15mins before the start I was back on the trainer warming up next to another M1 competitor. This gave me more incentive to warm up 'hard' as a bit of a mental game.

Officially I was off last, but the Electrician must have had another PVC related technicality and had to be set off behind me. Off the line I was straight into it and feeling good. My minute man was my first target, and at the 5 minute mark I had passed him. 7km point was the rolling hills, and at the top of those I'd caught my 2min man. Over the train tracks and down a slight drop, I spot my freaky-middlenamesake-TT-nemesis Martin Lama looking strong on his return leg. Onto the final climb only to find out the turn around point only half way up the hill! This would have made the flat-landers happy, but I'd have been happier having to complete the entire ascent. Homeward bound and nobody in sight. I had M1 title in the bag as long as there were no mechanicals. The side/tail wind was a god send with the rear disc and simply threw me all the way home in a time of 27:47.

Results: Goals #1 and #2 achieved, I was just under a minute from John Cain's M4 time of 26:54, an outstanding ride that will be my target time next year. So, a state title on the bike! It made for good conversation at our massive dinner party in Ballarat that night when they all asked how I went. :)

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