With the top three podium places in last year’s race divided by only 5 seconds, and as defending state title holder I was fired up to ride well. The wind was up (the kind that seems to be coming from all angles) but the sun was shining. It was an undulating, out-and-back course and I was the last of the women off with a start time of 14:15, with 1 minute intervals between riders.
My aim was simple: win.
The starts were uneventful, Cherie (Symmetry CC) was granted a technical restart and was now starting 1 min behind me. The first half of the race was the worst, the overall gradient was uphill, there was a few hills that I overgeared slightly on (it is hard to change your gear if you are out of the saddle on a TT bike) and I picked the wrong one at the base of the hills. I tried to keep Lorraine (ATTA) in sight, but it was hard, she was really moving (and I was hurting). We turned the u-turn, it was confusing how to maneuver through the cones and I slowed considerably.I had seen all the women come back from the turn; Danielle Longworth was riding on a flat tire, there were Claire (WAIS), Linda (SWCC) and Kelly (KD cycles) not separated by much, so I worked out Claire must be riding a fairly fast time. Sarah (EH Bike Services) came past, then Lorraine; at the time I estimated that Lorraine was 30secs behind Sarah and Lorraine was still 1 minute in front of me.
I was on the final leg, and got (what I call) my second kick, the fun bit. I was starting to feel good and could finally see Sarah and Lorraine. We came to the finish and Lorraine was just in front of me, I tried so hard to catch her, but finished some 5 seconds behind.As all good time trials should, it hurt, every single bit of it. I am trying to average 40km/hr over our standard distance (25kms), I can do it with 16km TTs, so am working on it over the longer distances, but with the hills and wind on our course in this race, I was happy enough with 39km/hr. I was just so happy to win.
Final results (top 5):1. Davina Summers 0:38:28 (57sec faster than last year)
2. Lorraine Schutz 0:39:23 (7sec faster than last year)
3. Claire McLean 0:40:06 (DNS last year)
4. Sarah Fraser 0:40:50 (22sec faster than last year)
5. Linda Evans 0:41:14 (48sec faster than last year)
Tracey Ober took out the Masters title over Sue Munro. The junior racing had a good turnout, with Melissa Hoskins (JETS) taking out the U/19 girls in a great win over Sarah Kent (Drapac/WAIS). U/17s girls: Michaela Anderson 1st, Bella King (JETS) 2nd. Full results can be found on the ATTA website.
Pleasingly, I am now leading the SRS points table (unofficially) with 2 races to go in the season. I may not be in Perth for either of the races, so sadly this may be as close as I get to winning it for 2008.Thanks to ATTA (Peter Meyer) & SWCC for organising a well run event. A special thank you to Mr Bobby Barnes (9th place Masters Men), for letting me use his rear disc wheel, and my coach; Andrew Ivey(pictured here with me) for driving me down to the race.
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