The Need for Speed

May 02, 2013

Since my Aunt's birthday was today, we drove to Rehoboth to be there for a Frogs Leap wine dinner at Eden for her Birthday. I also was able to finally give her the gift I won at Phoenix Bike's fundraiser: An autographed picture of Julie Andrews from the iconic scene in The Sound of Music. The weather for the weekend was looking iffy, with a cold front coming up the coast, bringing rain and cold, so the only time for me to get in a ride was the morning on Friday, even though I was "working remotely". Karma being what it is, I ended up working solid from the moment I got back from my ride until we left for dinner, and then after dinner, fixing some network issues with a bit of wine in me. So I got prepped and headed out, and into an epic head wind. The storm was blowing pretty hard from the south, so riding to Dewey wasn't bad, but when Rt 1 south out of Dewey pullled straight North/South, it was like climing a mountain. Past the first watch tower, it starting spitting a bit, coupled with intermittant pockets of really cold air, I knew I didn't have the time to make it all the way to Bethany Beach today. This became readily apparent when I reached the Indian Head Inlet, and was staring into a dark purple set of clouds, intent on drenching me. I hooked it into the marina on the north side of the bridge, and looked at some boats.

Getting back on the bike, I wound my way back out to Rt 1, and hit it going north. This was easy! It was no problem riding really really fast with this huge tailwind. So I kept on it as hard as I could, up across and into Dewey Beach, which was about 5 miles. My garmin rewarded me with a 5 mile lap at just over 10 minutes, so exciting. I thought maybe I'd finally be able to KoM the the sprint at the entrance to my Aunt's road... No, it was blowing hard from that direction too. I was very surprised to see the KoM on the Rt 1 segment. OMG.. 4.2 miles at 30.4mph average. What a Tail wind! Though the pros without a headwind do about the same (Tony Martin's Tirenno-Adriatico Stage 7 time trial clocked at 32.8mph over 5.7 miles). For me the accomplishment was being able to go full out for over 4.2 miles and only really start tiring towards the end. This is when I really started realizing that my body is not best suited for climbing mountains, but when I get trained right, I will be a proper sprinter / Time Trialist.
Share: