team time trial

As usual, a bunch more photos are on my flickr site.

WWU Cycling
Girls 2nd place DII
Guys 6th place DII

Despite losing a teammate during the race our western girls rocked the team time trial. There were only off the pace of first by 8 seconds! Awesome job!

Until today, I haven't finished a TTT with the team yet. I've been dropped every time so far. We've only raced 3 times together, whether I've been sick, popped of the back by a hard acceleration or just didn't have the legs, we have never finished all together. One of my problems is poor positioning in the pack, basically, I don't stay close enough to my teammates wheel. It's only the fact that I'm scared to be so close. That's it, so for the last week and a half or so I've been training my mind to be "ok" with being so close to a wheel.

So the TTT has been on my mind a lot lately, and I was definitely nervous for it. I've been reading a book written by the Dalai Lama and last night I was chilling in the room and grabbed the book. I opened the book somewhere in the middle, and it happened to be at the start of a chapter, I didn't really feel like reading at the moment but thought I'd read the intro to the chapter.

"Once there was a disciple of a Greek philosopher who was commanded by his Master for three years to give money to everyone who insulted him. When this period of trial was over the Master said to him, "Now you can go to Athens and learn Wisdom." When the disciple was entering Athens, he met a certain wise man who sat at the gate insulting everybody who came and went. He also insulted the disciple, who burst out laughing. "Why do you laugh when I insult you?" said the wise man. "Because," said the disciple, "for three years I have been paying for this kind of thing and now you give it to me for nothing." "Enter the city," said the wise man, "it is all yours..."

Perspective is an amazing thing. When I read this, I did not worry about the TTT anymore. It just told me that I was ready for a good TTT, I had paid my dues, and it was time to reap the rewards. Today was the best TTT of my life. Its nice when good form lands on a nationals weekend, and even better when your head is in the right place. We rode really fast today, it was awesome. It was a bit of a shock to see that we finished in 6th place. But we rode amazingly well, it was our best TTT of the year.