Battle of the Bronchitis

The sore throat and cold that was mentioned last post turned into bronchitis. This was not diagnosed by a medical doctor, rather by logical reasoning that I was around someone that had it, and after a little reading at an online medical site, it seemed pretty clear to me.

Despite dealing with a bit of the effects on the lungs, I felt pretty good and mostly normal I headed for the Plainville Spring Series on Saturday. I felt good at first, I even bridged a gap to a potential breakaway on lap two. We got caught though, and no one wanted to pull at the front as we headed into the strong headwind. Seeing as I was there for the work out, I decided the heck with it, I'll just stay here at the front then and they can go the measly slow pace that was all that I could muster into the headwind. Finally a few riders capable of more speed into the wind decided to pull up through, increasing the speed of the peloton a notch or two.

It was disaster for me. Just tired from the pull at the front, and beginning to feel that I didn't have much left I couldn't hang on to the peleton and promptly got dropped. Each time they came around to lap me, I tried to catch onto them but I just couldn't hold the speed for long. The headwind was really taking a toll on me while I was alone.

Sunday it was off to Rhode Island with Jake for the King of Burlingame mountain bike time trial. The course is quite fun, which was a bonus this year. It was the first race as an expert for me. Considering I haven't really started 'training' yet, I was still suffering from a bit of bronchitis, and the competition was going to be a step up, I wasn't expecting much for results. Riding a fun course was going to bring a lot more joy to the whole event. My legs felt like bricks the whole time and I figured I was slow.

Suprisingly, my bike computer said I was about a minute and a half faster than last year. The 'official' results, listed me as a minute slower. After finally getting to see the results I realized that something just didn't make sense, as I had suspected after hearing my time on Sunday. The way the start order worked with bib numbers, the start intervals, and the finishing time I was 3 seconds behind bib 103 at the finish, real time. He would have started exactly two minutes ahead of me. This simply wasn't the case. There was no one that close in front of me as I crossed the line. There were two guys not far behind me as I crossed the line, but not at a 3 second difference. I did catch bib 106, who started 30 seconds before me, we finished not too far apart. I figure I had about 40 seconds on him, race time. That would place me at 36 minutes 5 seconds, which is nearly identical to the time on my bike computer. I'm pretty sure I should be listed at 17th with a time just over 36 minutes instead of 20th. I could go on about how my time just doesn't make complete sense, but the reality of it is, I wouldn't have won anything anyway.

Ah well, onto the first Root 66 race of the season and Easter weekend.