Tuesday, August 25, 2009

It happens


So today was the 5 km bike time trial. It is set up to race 4 laps in a 1.4km loop. Since it is a time trial (you race against time), one rider goes every 60 seconds.

The track was amazing. It is like formula one except you are on your bike..(which is even better). There are a short steep climb over the bridge..a bit of incline..S-curves..I LOVE IT.

The Canadian crew was amazing...lots of cheers and hollering :).

So I went...it was good..by this i mean, it was painful. I focus on riding smooth and stay wide and turn into the turns. Got out of the seat and hammer up the climbs. I can say this is by far one of the toughest ride. Which it should be.

It ended as soon as it begun. Lots of cheers and what not. A Hungarian cyclist (whom almost caught up to me in the 5 km run race) asked me how I do. I do not know. I was blinded. No watch. No speedometer. Just me, myself and my Lord. That was what I wanted. Just go out hard. No expectation.

So they announce the winner. I ended up at 9th place in my Age Category. Here's the interesting part. The judge said some people did three laps and some did five. So they took the average.

My time was 10 min 41 secs. The guy after me was 8 min and something seconds. With a one min stagger start. He would have passed me. No one passed me on the race. In fact, I passed the guy in front of me and he was top three and bike 7 min and something seconds.

Not much to say. Sometimes the judge give you a bad call and that's that. I think either I did five laps (I pretty sure I didn't) or they time me wrong. Either way, that's the call and that's that.

I am not as upset over the medal as I just want to know what my time was. At the end of the lap, there was one turn where it goes wide and is a decline. I was whipping my Cervelo Dual pretty hard on that turn. Just hammer, lean in, head down and don't slow down.

It was great to see the Canadian team in action. We even got our own jerseys (pics will come up soon).

I am loving Australia. So nice. It's 30 here and they call this winter...i was chatting with my roommate last night over the patio and we saw whale in the sea :D. Tonight we are heading over to Sea World for dinner.

As for me, my races are pretty much done. I am bailing on the 20 km bike race tomorrow as I don't have a road bike. My legs are pretty beat from racing in the 5 km bike time trial and the 5 km run race.

I will post some pics soon....hope everyone is well and thanks for the encouragement...




PS - I found a new love..it's called Vegemite!!





6 comments:

Kewl Nitrox said...

Way to go Cliff, where in Aus r u? Stopping by singapore on the way back?

Anonymous said...

Roll with it -- it's part of the glory of sport.

But ... you like VEGEMITE???? (UGH!!!)

Thomas said...

Vegemite - YUCK!!!

Jacob L said...

sounds like an awesome day, can't wait for the pictures...mmm...I wanna try some of that vegemite.

Unknown said...

vegemite... ewwww

ShirleyPerly said...

Weird about the lap count/time thing. Oh well ...

But vegemite? I don't think I could even try it!