Alexis Report

What can I say? This was my first individual time trial, and I couldn�t have asked for a better course. 18 miles out and back, with a couple of rollers in the middle of the course.

At the starting line, I defiantly felt the anticipation of wanting to drop the hammer right from the get go. But quickly realized that I had to pace myself until I got to the half way point. Only then did I drop the hammer all the way to the finish.

The race for me was great, but not without me making a mistake or two. One of the most significant mistakes that I made, was 6 miles into the race. One of the volunteers was standing on the side of the road next to some orange cones, and we were told that the turn around point was clear marked by orange cones. I then thought I heard the man say turn around, not sure quite what to do? I stopped went back the other way and asked the guy if this was the turn around point? He said no, you have 3 more miles.

So I lost probably a good minute with that little detour.

But hey, live and learn, (I hope!)

I finished the race in 57:22 putting me in 12th place out of 13 riders.

Sarah Miller came to race as well and did awesome! She had no problem finding the right turn around point. Sarah finished in 6th place overall with a time of 52:15

I think this was a awesome race and would love to try it again. It is especially fun if you love to drop the hammer, and want to see how fast you are. The only person your competing with is yourself, and how fun is that!

Sarahs Report

Holy Head Wind! This was a race I couldn�t wait to do, especially after participating in the Team Time Trial with some of the girls on the NorCal team. The course was 18 miles, and true to the nature of the area, chalk full of your daily dose of Head Wind.

One week prior to Esparto, I had gone to Jim Keene at Norcal Cycling to get (finally!) my LT test and my Power test done, and these numbers helped in this race tremendously. As I felt pretty good going into this race, albeit not knowing what to expect as an outcome because I�d never done an Individual TT before, I decided to set my goal for the top 5, and also, first and foremost, I did NOT want to get passed!

The Cat 4 women didn�t start until around 10:30am, and by that time, the good �ol wind had started up and was blowing everyone around. And there were crickets and butterflies everywhere!! Better keep your mouth closed for the better part of this one - no yawning allowed! The course started out flat for the first 4-5 miles, and then right after you went up and over an overpass, the big rollers began. I liked this aspect as it allowed you to change body position and get out of the saddle a little. The turn around point was at 10.2 miles, which meant you had 7.8 left to go. Time to turn the Turbo chargers on and crank it up! Since I hadn�t done this before, I wasn�t sure where to put my biggest efforts. So being that the first half was longer than the second, I put out a hard consistent effort until the turn around, and then just hit it. When I crossed the finish, it was so quiet, with just the wind howling and those friggin� crickets and butterflies blowing around my head. I reall y liked that; no fuss, no crowds cheering, just you and yourself and your cool down time. It was really different, and I just thought to myself that I can�t wait to do this again.

I finished the 18 miles in 52:57 minutes, off of 1st place by 3:35, and just off 5th place by 10 seconds! As Lance Armstrong so aptly put it, "Every second counts."

2008

2007

2006

2005

2004