TTT Report

I woke up at 6am. You know how long it's been since I've been up that early? I can't remember. I never use an alarm clock, but I sure needed it this morning.
I rode over to Brian's who was kind enough to give me a ride to the race, which was about 5 miles north of Stillwater. The 4 of us met at the race start, signed in, and got our start time. We went over a couple of protocols, and then went out and warmed up, pulling up to the line about 5 minutes before our start time.
It was a perfect day, maybe just a little cool, but once we started riding there was no issue. Within about 3 miles we were up to and already averaging 25 mph which was the goal. We settled in and worked really well together, especially for a team that had ridden together only once before, for about 1 1/2 hours.
It really was an uneventful race, we just worked and made sure we stayed together. With about 5 or 6 miles to go, one of the team just couldn't stay on any longer and told us to go on without him. We only needed to finish with 3 of the 4 man team. He had been having problems on the hills, and was only fading off just a little. We tried to crank it up a little and make it a good finish.
We came across the line with my computer showing a 25.3 mph average. We placed 6th, or last in our category. This was a very fun race. We were a little disappointed that we finished last, and didn't break the hour mark, but we are already talking about next year.
It was great seeing a lot of friends. As I came back to the finish line after cooling down, I heard a yell from the side of the road "Tom...Tom Russell" . I looked over and saw Jay and his wife...huge smiles. I didn't even look both ways, but immediately turned and rode right to them. I wanted to give him a hug so bad, but...you know. Jay's been fighting cancer for at least a year now, and within the last 3 weeks has been diagnosed terminal. He'd ridden to the race and like I said was all smiles. This guy is so fuckin' brave! We talked for about 5 or 10 minutes. It was great...just great.
Like I said it was a beautiful, perfect summer day. I got a ride to the race so I could ride my bike back home. It seemed like, for a second or two, the other guys were a little jealous, that I got to keep on riding. One of them even mentioned that I'd have a tail wind home. But like I said, that only lasted for a second or two.
The race was 25 miles, and I warmed up for another 11 miles.
Totals for the day 76/20.4