Near perfect conditions today. Finally broke the hour mark this year. I should have broken 59 minutes as well (time for the enevitable "but") but some dog decided to try to have me for breakfast. Throwing my bike to avoid him I popped my hip out of joint.
After that point an already painful 40K turned downright miserable. Bill Lawhorn of Saturn Dayton afterwards told me my cadence never looked right again. He thought the dog got me. So after some stretching and some fidgeting on the bike I was able to get back into somewhat of a rythm. For those of you that don't know the Monrovia course on your way back in you can start to see the finish area from more than 1 mile away. I flipped my computer over to time to check how I was doing and was pleasantly surprised to see it counting still in the 56 minute range. Lots of self encouragement later I crossed the line in 59:17 a scant 7 seconds off Joe Niccum's best time on that course this year and just 17 seconds off my goal.
My legs were certainly feeling yesterday's race at PUR. To help out I rode most of today 1 gear lower at a higher cadence. Today's time kept me in third in the overall Monrovia hunt for the Cat 4's with 1 race remaining. Congrats are due to Texas Roadhouse for claiming the Lightspeed frame for the 50k TTT blazing their way to 57:52, more then 2 minutes ahead of the next team.