Paying for Performance

My opinion on yesterday's Sandy Hook TT has already been stated by Don. Early in the day, when I was frozen to the bone despite wearing at least four layers of clothing, I had come to the decision that I wouldn't race. However, when I was standing out near the turn-around marshalling, I saw SO many riders going SO slow that I just had to go out and kill it.

I rode a ~7 mile TT in 17:26, more than a minute faster than I rode it last year. Of course conditions were different than last year, but I believe my time this year would have put me in the top 10 of the 4/5 category whereas last year I was probably in the bottom third of the 4/5 category. The machine known as Troy Kimball of Westwood Velo, who started one minute behind me, finished only twenty seconds ahead of me. That was satisfying. He was the 2006 NJ Pro/1/2 Road Race champion.

It's amazing what a 20 minute warmup and a 20 minute hard effort will take out of you. I was exhausted all day, dehydrated, sore and stiff. Some of that is due, however, to standing around in the cold and wind as part of the race promotion responsibilities. All in all, it was quite a good and productive day.

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I'm watching De Ronde on Cycling.tv right now. I bought a Premium subscription last year in mid-April. At the exchange rate back then, it came out to just about $40, for a full year of access. That may sound like a lot to pay for a single channel of programming that isn't even populated with new content 24/7. It's not. The cable TV portion of my cable bill is about $50 per month. I'm pretty sure, in hours-per-dollar, I've gotten a much better deal from Cycling.tv. I highly recommend buying the subscription, I know I'll be renewing mine in about a week and a half. Plus, you get to show your support for race programming in the USA. I suppose if enough people from the USA sign up, we'll have more regular TV coverage of things like the US Open Championships on NBC yesterday (what an epic race--even my mom was impressed).

I'm looking forward to a solid four-hour tempo ride today. Should be a good way to drop one or two of those extra pounds that crept up on me the past three weeks.