Diablo Junction - 23 miles

Well I was more than a little disappointed that the rain kept me from riding Wednesday night. My legs on Wednesday were fully recovered and I felt great, but there was a thunderstorm and I don’t do thunderstorm rides.

So this morning I still felt pretty good, but maybe like I’d lost some of that power boost that I got from the century last week. The road was still a little wet and it was a cool, arm-warmer kind of day. Rick, JB, and I started off right on time.

I checked the web for coverage of the Giro prologue but since it was such a late start (Italian time) that I didn’t find anything. Rick and I discussed tactics for riding a 1.1km prologue TT and we decided you should just think speed and not tactics.

Starting way down at Moss Landing I got out of the saddle and pedaled slow RPMs in a big gear because it felt good and it was fun and I imagined that there was some training benefit for doing so. I got a little ahead of the guys but I really wanted to stay close so we could have a sprint at the Junction maybe. Then just before the Bump, Rick asked me if I was going to stand the whole way up – and I thought I just might do that! But at the Bump I sat down and pedaled a slightly smaller gear.

Somewhere near the Upper Washout we lost JB – I think maybe he stopped to take off his rain jacket. Rick and I were still together at Big Shady Oak and he wondered if JB was going to chase us down, but I said “There will be no capture!”. Then after Chainbuster I figured I’d take a hard pull and see if Rick could stay with me… but he couldn’t. Junction time: 42minutes, Rick was about 45 seconds back. A few minutes later, JB showed up shouting “it’s a mad sprint for third!” and that was kind of funny - sprinting for last place.

Back home by 9:40 ! Wife and daughter liked that, they had some bossing around to do.