about the day Mommy got smoked by a 70 year old

After a whole week of stress about my legs, I finally decided I would do this thing...

Today I did the Paula Higgins Memorial Record Challenge/Time Trial thingie. Paula was a rider who died earlier this year when she met with a car. She was a talented Time Triallist, I'm sad that I never got to meet her.

I went out with one of my training mates, Mr. Greyhound. He's quite fast. I call him Greyhound, he calls me Rabbit, it's all good. That's Mr. Greyhound, not Tri-Greyhound.

This particular time trial is held at a premier location - Moriarty, NM (read: the arsehole of nowhere). It's actually a very interesting little stretch of road - all of 20ft of elevation change over 40K of distance, little to no wind, fairly mild weather. It is flat, flat, flat and straight as a pencil. The course is a renowned location for time trialling, and it's my understanding that it's seen some big names over the years.

Let me put it this way: if you ever want to know how fast you can go on a bicycle, this is the place to find out.

I managed to get me and Greyhound in at the last minute - neither of us felt up to 40K of time trialling so we asked to do the 20K time trial.

Now, here's the thing...for the 20K time trial,there are no national records to compete for unless you are in an age group categories of, um, 16, or 55+. So, Mr. Greyhound and I were up against the world class of time trialling geezers - and they are fast.

Do not ever let anyone tell you that just because they are old they are slow - this is the biggest lie ever next to "the check is in the mail."

Fall had fallen on us overnight with a thump. It was cold and misty this morning, there was a low hanging mist in the air all morning. I wore my superman top (a royal blue compression top that screams Superhero), and then I hemmed and hawed about leg warmers. Did I mention it was cold? In the end, I kept them on. The red ones...for speed!

I got a good start, and I channelled Gonchar the whole way. You remember that time trial in the Tour where he was just killing pavement all the way to the finish? Well I do. That man was sweating blood....Mr. Man, with his big ol' Manly Legs...He would have mowed through his granny to finish that race first.

I pushed hard, with a high cadence. It felt like I was going uphill on the way out. So I thought to myself, if I'm pushing this kind of speed, I'll really kick butt on the way back!

But of course, after the turnaround came....the headwind. Weirdly, it felt like I was going uphill both ways.

Mr. Greyhound posted a shocking sub-30 - holy crap is he fast! That's a great time, if you're 70.

My 20K timetrial, total time: 36:30 roughly. Not stellar, but a personal best for me (since it was my first attempt). By comparison, 36:30 is not a bad time - if you're 70. So I either have to get faster, or just keep the same pace for the next, oh 35 years.