Clarks Valley 40K (25mi) ITT

Headed to Mechanicksburg this weekend to visit Brian and participate in the Clark's Valley 40 K ITT. A pretty good race venue except for the turnaround at the 20K point. I really don't like races where you literally have to turn around. the upside to it was they did it on an uphill grade so it made accelerating out of the turnaround much better than others I have seen. The course was fairly hilly but more downhill portions on the return trip. I only remember struggling on 2 of the climbs on the way back.

I felt pretty good this morning and again had pretty high expectations for myself. My start time was at 9:15:30 and was one of the4 last start times on the day. The race started out on about a 3 mile uphill grade. I was feeling pretty good and usually can ride pretty Strong on climbs like this. I was holding between 23 and 24 mph for this entire portion of the ride then things leveled off for a bit then back to more climbing. It was really hard to keep a good rhythm on this course but I was holding my own. I probably went a little too hard though because by the time I reached the final climb before the turnaround i was really starting to feel it. Man I need to lose some weight.

The turnaround as I said want bad and I was able to accelerate back up to speed fairly quickly although I was really starting to feel the first half in my legs. I continued to push myself though and finished with a 1:09:09 time (21.69 mph). I was pretty happy with this time but am pretty sure I could have done better. I did not have any trouble with my heart today but i did back off on my efforts a couple of times during the race fearing that I was riding too hard, I really need to get over that though, hopefully I will over time.

Of course Brian smoked the course on his new REK breaking the sub hour mark with 56 or 57 minutes...Good job Brian.