The morning after...

Well last night was probably the most convincing night of racing that I am NOT a Belgian. No amount of Belgian knee warmers/embrocation would ever be able to get me to race in those conditions again. Here's how it all went down....

11am it was Sunny and mild. A bit breezy, and, for a second I thought the weather forecasters were going to call it completely wrong. However, to my dismay, they were spot on...if not underestimating.

Over the next few hours the skies clouded up slowly, and things started to look eerie.

4pm it starts to rain and the wind picks up. The ground is a bit soaked, but it's more sprinkling than anything. I leave at 4:30 to get to the park, and, upon arrival, the wind picks up, and the rain is even more biting. Now, it's like mini-icicles. There is no covered area to set up and remain covered from the weather, so, I just threw on my raincoat and stuck it out.

5:30pm the wind and rain pick up even worse and I'm absolutely soaked. I've embroed up by this time, and am just spinning it out, doing a new sweet warm up routine the super genius got to me.

5:50 I'm pretty soaked by now, but, I've donned my ultra light raincoat and baselayer UNDER my skinsuit and am pulling off to the start. I arrive absolutley soaked and pretty cold, but, I'm also still feeling warm from the warm up on the trainer.

6:01 I'm off. Feeling good and spinning. As I head south, I think to myself, you konw, this isn't so bad.

6:03 I make a few turns and start eading east south east...The wind is blowing direclty into my face and the rain is flying around. I can't see. The guy that started 1 spot in front of me missed his start time and comes around me spraying me in the face with the water off his wheel. I have to stop pedaling to clear my eyes.

6:07 I'm even wetter and colder. My hands are numb and I cannot shift. I cannot move my hands

6:11 I hit the hill and my legs are shivering. My chest is frozen, and I cannot breath

6:12 Scott Tietzel from Jelly Belly comes smoking around me...no leg warmers.

6:15 I hit the turn around and cannot feel my hands enough to squeeze the brakes. I'm shivering even more and almost go down from the shaking

6:23 Rounding one of the last turns, I see out of the corner of my eye that Amy & her family are watching! That gives me something to think about, as my mind is blank by now. I'm getting even colder and shivering even more

6:25 I exit the trees on the backside of the course for the final few kms absolutely crawling. I think I'm doing about 19 mph.

6:29 I reach the finish line frozen. I can move my arms from the aero bars and they hold the position once I get to my car.

I jump in the car...28:51 minutes later, colder than I've ever been before. I'm sneezing, drooling, nose running, and entire body numb. I can't even grab the wire to remove the powercontrol from the SRM. I just say fuck it and get in the car instead. I start the car and warm it up, slowly changing out of my soaked clothes. I'm shivering and just miserable. Amy drives up along side of me and smiles. I jump into her car, giving the future in-laws hugs and kisses all the while stuttering my "welcome to Denvers!".

Once I finally warm up, I speed home and get changed for dinner. We hit Vesta and it makes all the pain go away almost instantly. We topped the meal off with their Sticky Toffee Pudding which brought me to a place the exact OPPOSITE of where I was only a few hours earlier.

This weekend's Haystack TT is going to go a LOT differently. 65 degrees and sunny. Looking forward to it for sure!!

That, was pure HELL.