After what felt like an eternity of off-season training, today was the first Time Trial of the Hawaii's 2009 race season - Mokuleia TT.

The prelude: Last Thursday I decided to try the superman position on my TT bike (translate that to: hit pothole, hands come off bars, mike goes flying) while going around Diamondhead at 25mph. No broken bones, but plenty blood, one deep cut, a broken 3T Ventus aerobar, and a bunch of bruising. OK, the bruising doesn't look that bad, but I don't bruise easily!

I ended up fixing the bar with a mix of 2-part epoxy and splints made from a coke can. Not perfect, not pretty, but sufficiently strong.

I woke up at 6am, hopped into the car and drove over to Mokuleia, arriving early enough that I rode the course once. I cruised some of it, did a few hard efforts, and used the pre-run to check out the wind conditions. Typically, the Mokuleia course has a tailwind going to the turnaround with a slight downhill grade on the road (or at least it feels like it), then a stiff headwind on the return leg.

My rear derailleur wouldn't shift into the 11t cog during my warm-up, but I figured out that the washer that holds the cable had rotate and was blocking the parallelogram when going from 12t to 11t. After frantically fixing that, I changed to my race wheels, then rolled over to the start.

My 30sec man was Shep Myers, with Ben Sambrano (thanks for letting me use your pump!) 30sec behind, and Tony Lang a further 30sec back.

15sec... 5... 4... 3... 2... GO! This time last year I was about 1.5mins late for my start, wrestling with the jersey that I had on over my skinsuit, discarding it, then getting down to business. This year went a little more smoothly! After a few miles I picked off Shep Myers, then a little later caught a rider from HACC.

At the point where I'd done a little over 5 miles I was busy looking for the turnaround... Not to be found. I kept going... I could see a rider ahead... Kept going... Kept going... Passed Kate Johnson... Kept going... END OF ROAD! Flipped a 180 in the gravel, paused for a bit wondering WTF happened to the turnaround, then decided to keep throwing down the watts. I hadn't seen Shep who I had passed earlier and I thought this was weird. About 1.5 miles later I see 4 cones in the road with a cop standing around... I guess the first 10+ riders didn't have a turnaround, or at least it wasn't obvious on the way out.

My ride to the turnaround (gravel) was at an average of 30.6mph, 337w, 100.4rpm, 186bpm. The struggle back to the finish into the wind was at 27mph, 316w, 98rpm, 189.3bpm. Probably one of my best early season TT riders ever. Pacing was perfect, cadence was nice and high. I just need to make some tweaks to my position and find another 20-30 watts.

Official results haven't been posted yet, but I think congrats are in order to my team mate Mike Proffitt who bagged his second race win!

I've not officially heard where I finished (out of the riders that way to the end of the road), but I think I have a good idea of the final outcome. Once I know for sure, I'll post results on here.