Skip to main content

Sausage Suit Individual Time Trial

Hello Everyone!

Thank you for taking the time to come and read my latest blog post. It means a lot to see all of the post views, likes and comments about my blog.

Now on to my latest race, it was held on October 13th in Mansfield, Ontario. I have competed in this event for the last two years and had an absolute blast so I was really looking forward to this year. The event is called the Sausage Suit Individual Time Trial, I love the name and I wish more events had funky names like this one.

It was nice and warm leading up to the event and guess what, on race day the temperature had to drop and it was around 6 degrees. Not my cup of tea so I packed some extra racing gear and was on my way to the event. One of my favorite things about this race is that the start is at 1:30 in the afternoon, so I actually got to sleep in a bit :).

We arrived with about 1 hour to race time and that was perfect for me since I didn't have to be in the cold any longer then necessary. Once I signed in and got myself ready it was time to do a warm up and trust me I couldn't wait. During my warm up I rode some of the race course and also got involved in a kids race that was going on. It was lots of fun watching little kids riding their bikes the best they could through some very tight areas.

It became race time and since it is a Individual Time Trial we all went out 30 seconds apart.The last two years we started under a tent but this year they did something different and very cool. We started out of a box trailer that they had, it gave everyone a starting ramp.  I am glad that I am only 5'8" because the trailer was a bit short.

I heard the count down and when I heard GO! I hammered down the first single track. The race course was basically all single track with only a couple double track connectors. I rode as fast as I could and I found that the first half of the course was harder then the second due to more roots, tighter corners and overall just tougher. I had a hard time figuring out my pace on the first half but on the second half of the course it was hammer time. I pushed myself and the bike to it's limits.

The race was two laps of 15km so once I came through the lap zone it was a repeat performance of lap one. I gave it everything I had for the 30km and had so much fun doing it. Once the race was over I did a nice cool down with my coach we rode some double track and single track.

I had one other competitor in my division that I knew was very fast but I wasn't sure who won so I checked the results and I got second, but only 47 seconds behind. What a close race after 30km!

Overall it was a very fun event and it is definitely one that I will keep on my calendar in the future.




Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ontario Cup #2 / XC Marathon #2

Ontario Cup #2 I am cro s sing the finish line after a very tough race       On May 15th I headed over to Duntroon, Ontario for O-Cup #2. It rained really hard the day before so the event organizer cancelled the pre-ride. The temperature was barely above zero and it snowed early in the morning at the race venue. The snow melted that had fallen on the ground as the day progressed. The sun started to peek out but was hidden by more clouds that held snow and rain. My race was at 1:30:00 in the afternoon so I was able to chat with some racers earlier and get a general concept of what the race course would be like. At the start line I definitely new that it was going to be a hard day on the bike. The start of the race was good but as soon as we all got into the woods it got really bad. There were at least 2 inches of mud on the double track and in the single track it was so bad that we couldn't ride it. All of the Juinor Experts were doing 3 laps a...
Post a Comment
Read more

Ontario XC Marathon Championships

It was a very sunny and hot day when I was down at Kingston for the Ontario Marathon Championships on September 3. It was the 4th race of the Ontario XC Marathon series and I was feeling really good for this event. I was currently leading the XC Marathon Series so I needed to have a good race in order to remain the leader of the series. At the event I had some great competition, my AWI team mate Adam Hill was doing the full marathon as well. He races in the 35 and over division and is leading the the series as well. The race start was at 11:00 and I was on the front row with Adam and other series leaders. The race went off and I lead it out for the first km and then my team mate Adam Hill took the front and led us through the first few single tracks. The first half lap was a very high pace but everything settled down in the second half of the first lap. At about the half way point of the race I was making a fast turn and my jersey caught a sharp point on a pine tree and the entire shou...
Post a Comment
Read more