VBC Time Trial and Run

Thursday evening I did the Vancouver Bicycle club's time trial for the second week in a row. Smaller crowd this week and I took off and seemed slower, but the wind seemed stronger. There was lots of glass on the shoulder and I was worried about a flat because I had taken off my bag and pump because it was a race. Anyway, tried to average 20-21 and did until mile 4-5 when the wind was head on and slowed to 17-19. Then turned around and 25-26 for awhile. I'm a racer now because there were three fields of cows on the route and I didn't moo at them, had to conserve breath and energy. About a quarter mile from the finish I pushed it up to 24 and ran over a small rock and felt it hit the rim through the tire, that felt bad but for awhile no flat. So I pushed it to 25 and felt the back vibrating- sure enough a flat tire, so I stood to even the weight out and coasted across the finish line going 22 with a flat tire- my first flat in a race ever! My speedometer said an average of 21.1 in 28+ minutes. Walked the bike to the Jeep and put it away, got the running shoes on and started running back up the time trial road. Handed my number back to the guy on the run and he yelled after me 28:27 which comes out to a 21.1 average just like my speedometer said and two seconds better than last week. Ran out two miles and turned around, passed 4 other racers going the other way who were running also. Got back to the parking lot and I was the only car left and the port-a-pottie was locked, run time- 4 miles 37:01 for a 9:15 pace. Planned on taking a picture of the time trial route, but it was almost dark when I finished running so I took a picture of the start. On a personal note I officially go to swing shift (2:30-midnight) starting on Sept. 18th, all the weekday races will be over by then but next year I'll have to take time off to do them.