Today's nightmare started by getting to bed really late on Friday night (After midnight) and setting my alarm for 3am so that I could catch my 5am flight from Honolulu to Kailua-Kona. I woke up at 4am... As you can imagine, a mad rush ensued! No time to think... Just grab everything, jump in the car and go... Got to the car, and realized that the rear seats in the Subaru do not fold down... Luckily the case managed to slide in over the rear seats... Just! Bike case, wheel bag, road and tt helmet, backpack... 3..2..1.. go!
After some fun driving I made it to the airport on time, and had the quickest ever transition from check-in to terminal! I should be a triathlete!
When I checked in, I shuffled myself from Row 7 to Row 6 which looked empty... Which was funny as Ariel and Lamar we sitting in seats A and C behind me, with an empty seat between them... I ended up with 3 seats to myself so I could stretch out the legs and attempt to sleep!
45mins later and we were in Kona. Another quick transition from terminal to baggage claim, then to the car rental, and I was on my way north to Waikoloa for the Stage 1, 6-mile Time Trial with the first rider off at 8am. Made it there in plenty time, threw the mongrel bike together (Taking two bikes to the big island for the sake of a sub 15-minute TT effort seems a little excessive, so I converted my R3SL into a TT beast). My weapon of choice was the R3SL + 3T Ventus + Zipp Sub-9 + Zipp 1080 + Giro Advantage.
<img alt="2009-6-13_stage_race_switch.jpg" src="http://www.mikezagorski.com/imgs_entries/2009-6-13_stage_race_switch.jpg" class="mt-image-left" style="margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;" width="500" height="375"</a>
Me converting the mongrel back to it's road bike configuration with Team Pacific Velo team mate Mike Proffitt in the foreground.
I chose to not bother getting an intense warmup and just went with spinning around and knocking back a blob of mud at Starbucks.
The TT course was a 10km point-to-point affair with some tailwind (later turning into more of a crosswind) and a +/- 1-mile uphill grind to the finish. At 6 miles long, it's not long enough that you can just warm up to the effort like in a 40km, and not quite a prologue that you can rip up at 200% effort. Some pacing strategy involved, and usually a good warmup.
I started my effort in the 500 watt range, then settled down to 385w / 32.6mph and held that for the first 5 mins or so. I lost some power in the crosswinds towards the finish, but ramped the power back up to 385-400w for the last few minutes, crossing the finish with 12min 45sec. 362w avg. I didn't feel so awesome at the finish and expected that I'd been beaten by Penn Henderson, or Tony Lang, but later found out that I'd won by about 20sec.
Before today, the TT stage was my biggest worry as I wasn't on my TT bike, and my aerobars weren't at the same position I was used to riding (higher than my TT setup), so it was nice to get the win. Great course with some very closer battles... 1 sec between 1st and 2nd place in the women's race!
After some fun driving I made it to the airport on time, and had the quickest ever transition from check-in to terminal! I should be a triathlete!
When I checked in, I shuffled myself from Row 7 to Row 6 which looked empty... Which was funny as Ariel and Lamar we sitting in seats A and C behind me, with an empty seat between them... I ended up with 3 seats to myself so I could stretch out the legs and attempt to sleep!
45mins later and we were in Kona. Another quick transition from terminal to baggage claim, then to the car rental, and I was on my way north to Waikoloa for the Stage 1, 6-mile Time Trial with the first rider off at 8am. Made it there in plenty time, threw the mongrel bike together (Taking two bikes to the big island for the sake of a sub 15-minute TT effort seems a little excessive, so I converted my R3SL into a TT beast). My weapon of choice was the R3SL + 3T Ventus + Zipp Sub-9 + Zipp 1080 + Giro Advantage.
<img alt="2009-6-13_stage_race_switch.jpg" src="http://www.mikezagorski.com/imgs_entries/2009-6-13_stage_race_switch.jpg" class="mt-image-left" style="margin: 0pt 20px 20px 0pt; float: left;" width="500" height="375"</a>
Me converting the mongrel back to it's road bike configuration with Team Pacific Velo team mate Mike Proffitt in the foreground.
I chose to not bother getting an intense warmup and just went with spinning around and knocking back a blob of mud at Starbucks.
The TT course was a 10km point-to-point affair with some tailwind (later turning into more of a crosswind) and a +/- 1-mile uphill grind to the finish. At 6 miles long, it's not long enough that you can just warm up to the effort like in a 40km, and not quite a prologue that you can rip up at 200% effort. Some pacing strategy involved, and usually a good warmup.
I started my effort in the 500 watt range, then settled down to 385w / 32.6mph and held that for the first 5 mins or so. I lost some power in the crosswinds towards the finish, but ramped the power back up to 385-400w for the last few minutes, crossing the finish with 12min 45sec. 362w avg. I didn't feel so awesome at the finish and expected that I'd been beaten by Penn Henderson, or Tony Lang, but later found out that I'd won by about 20sec.
Before today, the TT stage was my biggest worry as I wasn't on my TT bike, and my aerobars weren't at the same position I was used to riding (higher than my TT setup), so it was nice to get the win. Great course with some very closer battles... 1 sec between 1st and 2nd place in the women's race!
