I was meant to wake up at 4am this morning to drive around the North  Shore for the Malaekahana TT (40km), but managed to wake up 1.5hrs later than planned! Fortunately, I packed the car last night, and managed to get to the race start by 620am. The weather forecast was strong ENE winds, and rain showers... Both of those were in attendance!

I didn't have much of a warmup... Just put the bike together, signed in, rolled around a bit, then lined up. First rider off was Gary Shields from the Big Island, with me starting 30 seconds behind him. I didn't bother to look at the start order to see who I would have chasing me.

The ride out to the turnaround felt like it was a bit windier than normal, but with a few sections that seemed like more of a tailwind. I had the SRM on, but didn't pay much attention to my wattage, riding more based on feel.

I passed Gary a few miles into the course, then continued poking through the wind at an average of 26.37mph (about 0.5mph slower than 2008.

Going back to the finish I had some tailwind but it didn't seem as much as last year either. There were plenty sections of gusty crosswinds requiring a lot of concentration to control the bike with the Zipp 1080 front wheel, but nothing nearly as bad as Castle TT earlier in the year. I averaged just under 30mph from the turnaround back to the finish.

For a while, it looked like I was going to finish with a time in the 55 to 56 minute range, but I ramped up the watts for the last 6-7 minutes to cross the line with a time just under 54mins. I can't remember the exact time, but it was about 20 sec slower than my ride from 2008. I'm a little disappointed with the result as I wanted to ride closer to 51-52min's based on my recent training, but given the weather conditions it's still nice to get a win. It seemed like quite a few times were slower this year compared to 2008.