OCS Time Trial

I did an 8 mile time trial bike race at the Orange County Speedway. It’s a 3/8 mile race track in Rougemont, NC. The “OCS Time Trial” race is put on by Finish Strong.

I almost didn’t go to the race because of thunderstorms. It was raining hard near my house. The radar showed clearer skies near the track, so I decided to go for it. It was a great experience, so I’m glad I did.

When I arrived, I did my usual ritual of cleaning my bike chain and drivetrain. Then I headed out onto the track for a warmup. It felt easy to do 19-20 mph during a warmup. I decided to try and keep my speed at 22 mph for the race. I didn’t get much of a warmup because they announced they wanted to start the race.
Due to the threatening weather, the race officials skipped the instructions and had us go off one by one. I had no idea what I was doing, but started off thru the starting cones and onto the track.

The guy ahead of me had moved all the way to the inside of the track. That made sense, so you’d be travelling the shortest distance per lap. I followed suit. Since we were going counter clockwise, passing was on the right. This felt odd to me.
I had no trouble keeping 22 mph going up one side of the track. The other side of the track must have had a head wind, and my speed droppped to 19-20. I kept up this for the whole race. My leg muscles didn’t burn, but did start to fatigue half way thru.

I was watching my odometer to count the 24 laps. After a while, someone yelled out “8 laps”. Nice, there were people counting laps for me! A while later, they yelled out “16 laps”. When they yelled out “last lap”, I went all out the rest of the way.

Coming around to the finish, they didn’t direct me to go through cones or anything. I was a little confused. I kept going for another half lap, and then pulled into the center warm up lane. I hoped I had heard them correctly when they said “last lap” (what if they were saying that to someone else?).

After a few cool down laps in the center lane, I pulled off to the finish area. I saw a woman who beat my time by a minute finish and pull off the course. She was really breathing hard and her face was all red. I wasn’t breathing hard when I finished, and didn’t feel tired at all and wanted to ride some more. If I don’t feel wiped out after a race, I figure I didn’t put enough into it. Next time, I’m going to ride harder.
My Results:

Full Race Results:
http://www.mylaps.com/results/newResults.jsp?id=588229&ShowPerClass=1

I won my age group, altho no-one else in my age group showed up!