Norm's the Man with the Masta Plan

The Team Time Trial on Sunday was a blast. We had a great turnout with 63 teams coming out. The bad news, Norm and i finished last in the 1,2, the good news, our time was 4th fastest on the day.


For our warmup, we began by working registration. Within 20 minutes of sitting in the cold, my hands stopped working and doling out change became a real challenge. Randy shared some wisdom with us, "In the summer, set up registration in the shade. In the winter, set up registration in the sun." We needed this.
Another wise decision would be to not set up downwind from the generator which gave us the essential carbon monoxide we needed to really roll.

Sunday also marked Amy's first race back as she paired up with Caroline. Never fear about Ryan, he was warm back at my parent's house awaiting the post-race/Super Bowl festivities. Anyhow the duo rode well together and finished 3rd of 8 teams. Considering how much Amy's been riding, that's a victory in my book.
Mucho thanks to Jeff, Charlene and Nixon who came out to spectate and snapped these photos with my camera.

For our ride, Norm and i started nearly last, just before the two Herring squads. Our teammates had warned us about the last 6 miles which were supposed to be dead headwind and tough. Others talked about not taking enough advantage of the tailwind section.

Norm took the first pull off the line and set us up around 27 in the crosswind as we headed to the right turn. After that, we started cruising 28-29 in the tailwind. This was when Norm really started to go, his pulls were consistently a mph faster than me. Topping off at just under 32, i began to imagine what it would be like to have to dismount our bikes in the coming headwind and walk. It was at this time that i had to ask Norm to hold his pull a little longer because i was dying. We hit the bend and the wind shift. From this point on Norm never pulled below 26, and i kept it over 25.

Here's a shot Randy took of me finally pulling through on Norm at the finish line in our euro-helmets. What better way to thank your partner than covering him up completely with your big ass in the finish line photo.

The course was longer than 10 miles, and our average turned out to be 27.2 which i was pleased with. The Herrings beat us by nearly 2 minutes which probably means they did 29 or faster. JESUS