Tuesday night bike time trial

I did my best time at the Tuesday night 8 mile bike time trial last night. The conditions were very good, almost no wind. My time was 17:32, average speed of 27.4 mph. So things are looking good for the triathlons coming up, at least on the bike. My training buddy Jon also did his best time (18:14.9), so it was a good night for the team "Lost faculties".

Results of 8 mile bike time trial (I'm 2nd place)

Wool capital triathlon

I did the 2008 Wool Capital Triathlon in San Angelo yesterday. It was a 1.5K swim, 40K bike and 10K run. I really like this race - it has a nice open water swim, scenic bike route, and the run is on what the race director calls "the dirt road from hell". This is a dusty road with no shade, hills, and not very good footing. So the 10K run times tend to be a bit slow.

I finished 2nd overall, and was the first masters (over 40) finisher. My swim was good, bike was surprisingly good, and run was a little slow. So I guess I could work on my running a bit more before the half-iron races that I plan to do in September and October. My total time of 2:10:31 was a minute faster than the last two years, so that was encouraging. The bike course was windy this year, I was 32:10 at the 20K mark on the bike with a headwind, and came back in 27:59 with a tailwind.

Results, 2008 Wool Capital Triathlon (I'm 2nd place)

A photo of me starting out on the bike appeared in the San Angelo local newspaper. Clicking on the picture enlarges it enough to make the text readable.

Texas state championship - 40K bike time trial

I did a bicycle race! It was the Texas state time trial championship, which was a 40K race in Pattison TX (near Houston). There were several hundred riders, all starting individually at 30 second intervals. It was a mostly flat out-and-back course, with a few small hills, and a fair amount of wind. I was hoping to finish under one hour, but I surprised myself and finished in 57:25, which was good enough for 2nd place in the Men's 50-54 age group.

Here are the results for the 50-54 age group:

Link to Results Men's 50-54 (I'm 2nd place)

And here is a link to the complete results for all riders: All results.

I was surprised to see that my time would have ranked among the top cat3 riders. I really like this time-trial riding!

PS - Craig Prejean Sports took pictures, and here are a few of me. The first one is just after the start, and the last two are approaching the finish. I go for the bright colors to be visible to cars.