idle thoughts about time trials

[note from the rev: please don't take the following as self-hype b.s. it is NOT.

it's just some late-night musing, pondering questions i've gotten

about how i've managed to get so fast "all of a sudden."

you'll see that it just seems to have happened quickly,

when in reality, it's been gnawing at me for years!]

. . . . .

i really enjoy doing time trials. i've been doing them a long time.

but i don't buy into this "race of truth" crap.

i don't try to play them out to be all "epic" or anything; they're not.

but they ARE balls-out hard, and that's worthwhile.

when i first started doing time trials,

i was just some bikie living in mason city.

we had a series that was held, what was it, weekly? twice a month?

it was pretty frequently done, in a little town named "miller"

just north of ventura, in the clear lake area.

it was ten miles, i think.

my daughter did it, too. good story there:

one week, she started a couple minutes ahead of me.

she was maybe 12, 13 at the time, and had been racing a couple years,

and generally winning junior women's, and placing well in women's races.

she was getting tougher.

well, i came upon her in the tt at an intersection near the turn-around.

she had crashed, and was checking her knee, which was bleeding.

not slowing, i hollared as i passed,

"is your bike okay?"

"yes," she sniffed.

"well, then get your ass back on it,

and we'll look at your knees later."

we have a tight relationship.

and yet, i remember that day as the time i won for the first time,

beating the man, the myth, the legend: don berry.

and so it is with time trials and me. i used to have some pretty good top end. years have passed, i changed my riding style, hurt my back, sat out a few seasons, and am now trying to get back to those days of top end.

i'm doing the elkhart series now, and as i look at my results for the season, i see this: in four races, my time has improved from 19'05" to 16"15" in three months. i've gone from finishing 16th overall to 3d [5th overall--OUCH! way to go, lane and kurt!!]

but i'm just third [fifth], and that [REALLY] bites. so to me, no matter how it looks to others, i'm not happy with my results. the only one happy tonight was lippold, who won. and i'm sure if pressed, he'd say there was something he could have done better.

but it's not a race of truth--it's balls, and mine [clearly] aren't there yet.

[note: these are corrections made AFTER official results are posted. damn! ]

[ i want to sincerely thank the kind all9yards moms and kids who played with nyla while i raced tonight. if not for you and your loving and caring attention, i wouldn't have been able to ride. and, really, that's all i had in mind tonight--just ride the bike, get some series points. but once i got going, it felt pretty good going fast.]