The Morning After

Yesterday was the first time I've ridden the time trial bike on the road in well over a year and overall it was a good experience, but sill shows we have some major work to do on the fit.

As for the ride itself: I med Kami and Charity at Faulkner and we headed out on Loop 49. Kami was pretty slow--still recovering from her HM last weekend--so we had to stop and wait a few times. We continued out onto 155. I led the entire way. I have no idea what my speed was at that point as I have my computer set to read cadence and miles completed. Whenever I checked it was like 17.6 (and that included the warm-up, slow-downs, etc.). We turned around at Dogwood City and from there came back up 155. It was much harder coming back: more uphills and a headwind. Still--and this was not my intention--I completely lost the others by the time we reached the crossroads at FM 344. I decided not to wait, knowing Charity would wait for Kami, and plowed onward. Still no sign of them when I turned back onto Loop 49.

By this time my left shoulder was really hurting. It began hurting at 20 miles--I guess around the one hour point, which is usual--despite my stretching and other efforts to keep it loose. By 30 miles (Paluxey) I almost wanted to quit but I really wanted to get in 40 miles, so I turned around to do one more loop of the Loop. It was nice heading west--more downhill, bit of a tailwind (or so it seemed). But my shoulder was in agony. When I got to the turnaround I sat up all the way around, and when I went down to aero again for the last leg I almost wanted to cry. I made it back to the 69 Exit and got off (rather than finishing a complete loop to Paluxy and back). This was 39 miles, and I had to sit up the entire way into Faulkner Park (except the downhill).

The good news is that, apart from my left shoulder, the rest of me was fine. My legs were great. I felt fairly comfortable on the saddle. The X-Lab hydration system worked well and I've determined I will not need to use the aerodrink bottle for the race. The Infinit seemed to work well so far as I could tell.

I happened to get an e-mail from John Cobb last night who said he'd seen me out on the loop. I confirmed that it was me, then added a plea for HELP with my shoulder, so we are going to meet on Monday and see what, if anything, can be done. He's the expert, but my own instinct is to move the left aero bar outwards to loosen up that shoulder a bit. And I don't know which way to go vertically--up or down--whatever gives relief over the distance.