clubathletica: ATTA Champion Lakes Time Trial It was a beautiful day for my first race! Albeit a bit
clubathletica: ATTA Champion Lakes Time Trial It was a beautiful day for my first race! Albeit a bit chilly in the morning, the sun soon came out and the wind wasn’t too harsh. I was number 120 - my first official race number! I arrived with a good amount of time to get myself sorted out and do a decent warm up. When I signed my name off I noticed they had registered me as being a male, even though I put down female! This meant that my immediate results weren’t correct as I was in the wrong category. When I spoke to a coordinator about this, to make sure that they knew to change it, she said ‘You should put down your full name so we know who is male and who is female!’ I said, ‘I don’t know too many men named Georgi’, to which she replied ‘You’d be surprised!’ Well yes, I would be surprised actually. The course was nice to ride - a flat 5km circuit with a few sharp corners. The area is wide and open, which means if there’s any wind you really feel it, especially in the back straight like today! I’m improving a lot with my cornering, which is probably my greatest weakness on the bike. I usually tense up and hit the brakes, but I didn’t touch the brakes once today and made the conscious effort to relax around the corners. I needed to do four laps to make up 20km, but for some reason I had it in my head that I had to do five! I was saving some energy for the ‘fifth’ lap, and the realisation hit me with about 1km to go. I put the hammer down to the finish line, but could’ve gone a lot faster had I not been a silly billy. Oh well, guess that just means I’ll go faster next time! I averaged 30.6kmph - my goal was to stay at 30 or above. I placed 32nd out of the women (about 60 in total), and 117th out of the 150 riders there. This race was mainly a race against myself, to set a benchmark and a time to beat at the next one. I’m proud of myself, any place is an achievement for me! I must add, I was by far the most stylish rider there in my Road and Dirt kit Looking forward to the next one! -- source link