Morning arrived sooner than I would have liked, given that we got in pretty late last night and I slept very little. We rolled out at stupid-early-o'clock in the morning and arrived at the St. Paul TT venue with plenty of time for a course preview and good warm-up. The course was 6mi long and flat - with the last .5mi being uphill with the grade at somewhere between 7 and 8%. Not killer steep but definitely UP. Unfortunately there was not room in our car for me to bring my TT bike so I snagged a set of mini-clip ons from a friend in effort to at least attempt to be more aero. I didn't think it would really make a difference in my time but I have to admit in retrospect that having the TT bike would've DEFINITELY been advantageous. My time was not stellar and I was not pleased with my performance but it got me within the time cut with a large cushion, so I wasn't going to complain. We found out later that the time cut was being enforced so the field was shrunken down to 99 on the start line for the evening criterium. A lot of very strong riders were time cut, including half of our team - a major bummer.
Ah yes, climbing like the sprinter/time trialist I am!!
Thanks to Ryan Staab (Kristin's brother-in-law) for sharing his photos.
We headed back home soon after the TT for lunch and a little rest before the evening crit. I actually slept a bit and was feeling pretty good when we rolled out to the race venue - I love tight, technical criteriums and this course suits me well so I was hoping for another good finish.
