Wednesday, July 1, 2009

Riding an atypical fying 200 Meter time trial at Kissena Track

All your preparations are done and you have warmed up, the sweat is pouring down your head. You are staged adjacent the start and finish line, your heart is beating at over 160 BPM and you haven’t even started your effort. You nervously look at the flags to note which way the wind is blowing and how strong. You hope the wind would die down when it is your turn to circle the track. Unfortunately the wind is messing with your head by reversing direction and velocity.

The whistle is blown, it is your turn - you are now cruising around on the banking of the track, trying to avoid swallowing any bees which hang out by turn one, and then swiftly you focus your attention to that overhanging tree branch at turn two which could smack you off your bicycle. On the back stretch you check that the coast is clear of any slithering snakes, yes snakes, there have been a couple of small snakes doing a 100 meter dash along the back stretch every now and then. Up comes turn three and you scour the area for any slow moving baby turtles, they have been known to cross your path. At turn four you are reminded that a sewer pipe is buried beneath as you gently roll over the bump. This bump requires some finesse to negotiate at high speed, hit it wrong and your bike will fish tail or worse.

Now you are approaching the start and finish line for the second time, you are going faster and you glance nervously over to the flags to check on the wind, not that it matters, you are already committed to your effort. You jump hard as you cross the start and finish line and you are now on your way at full speed at the bottom of the track, over the same path you just scoped out. Your time is yelled out as you finish - it is slooooow. Upon checking your gearing, you had forgotten to change your warm up gear to race gear.

Dam those bloody turtles!

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