First race of the year

April 15th or there abouts was the first race of the year, but more significantly, was the first race since:
a) I bought a TT bike, an uber-expensive (for me) Cervelo P3C
b) I bought a skin suit
c) I came last in a race, in my cat 3 debut at the end of the 2008 road season
d) I trained my guts out for 6 months over winter in warm (not!) sunny (not this year!) Calgary

So I was pretty nervous...if it didn't go well, then I was threatening to throw my TT bike in the dumpster and take up mini-golf.

I rode the course on the Friday before. When the guy from Crankmasters said it was hilly, well, he should have said really, really hilly. But custom made for a light-weight like myself.

The ride itself didn't go totally to plan...I just couldn't bring myself up to a "PHD level of suffering". I felt fast on the way out, but assumed that the way back would be a painful slog into the wind. Turned out that the way out was into the wind...huh. So I came screaming over the line with about 20km worth of energy left.



But once the results came out, it turned out that I did really well. In fact, I beat my race result from Strathmore, which I did the same time of the year in 2008, only, the race was two kilometres SHORTER! Looks like the hard yards (and big bucks) were not in vain.