First Race of the 2013 Season Down

After months of training in the cold and wet roads of Greater Vancouver it was great to go out and measure the work that has been done.  The venue for this measuring stick was the Frostbite 20km Time Trial in Carnation, Washington (just outside of Redmond) on Saturday February 23rd.

Just Giver 4PD members Kelly Jablonski  &  Rob Thompson participated in the CAT 3 event while Brad Dean raced the retro category.  The rain held off for the most part but as expected for any event in February in the Pacific Northwest, it was cold! An even further challenge when racing against the clock where being as aero as possible is key, so we all had to be rather selective about clothing to balance the aero part of the equation with not freezing one’s butt off. We knew that the suffering would be hard but fast, with our goal times to be at the approx 31-32 minute mark to compare with average times at this event over years past; so we minimized our gear knowing the warmth of the JG4PD truck would be there for us at the finish.

The course was a U-Shaped overall flat track that traveled from US202 onto rural farm roads where barns, cows, and streams were prevalent.  Road quality was great and the organization of the event even better.  Although none of the JG4PD made the podium in our categories, we were all happy with our times considering it had been a year since we had been on our TT bikes, and it was the first race EVER for new member to the team, Brad. Kelly and Rob nailed the 32 minute mark within 4 seconds of one another, and Brad hit a time just over 34 minutes on his steel steed.  Nice, considering the field was filled with seasoned time trial specialists & triathletes riding 5 figure $ bikes.

This is a fantastic event to start of the season and some of us look forward to returning to this course when they run it again later in the season.  Now bring on the SPRING SERIES!