State TT race report from John Tenney and Bill Edgbert:
John – Friday
Got to the Palm Beach course a little late, around 6pm. Went out to ride the course, by myself. Bill and Wayne just drove it. Big dinner at Golden Corral with Bill, Lorraine and Wayne. They dropped me off, I drove back to Comfort Inn in Jupiter and slept well.

Saturday
Up at 6ish, had a nice breakfast at Comfort Inn. Got most of the Full Manny taken care of.

Out to the course, did some warmup. The sun was out and it was getting hot. My start time was 10:20 and they were on time. It was getting windy also. I couldn’t use the ghetto wheel, because it is technically not legal for UCI races so I switched to an 88mm rear wheel. The combination of 88mm on front and back wheels was not very stable. The seat was tipped a little forward too, so my left shoulder got a little sore. I completed the first 10 miles in under 30 minutes (about 29:45) so I felt good and was slightly ahead of schedule. I actually gained a little on Bill, who was one minute ahead of me (He was taking it easy for the first segment). As I turned on to the downwind leg, I was stuck behind a tractor pulling a device that spanned the road. I managed to squeak by but it slowed me a bit. Also, getting some noise from the bottom bracket. I stayed ahead of the 20 mph average until I turned on the downwind leg. I started dropping down to 18, 19 mph. Fortunately, I got a second wind and pushed it up to 24 mph at the end of the Hwy 98 segment. The last segment was slower though, as the road was bumpy, the wind was a factor and my shoulder started hurting more. I slugged through it and finished at 1:12:50 for a 20.3 mph average. I ended up 12th out of 13 Masters 55-59 that finished, HOWEVER, two of those guys missed their start times and did not get penalized. Seems a little unfair to me as I was there waiting for my start time, and not warming up as they probably were. 2 DNS filled out the field of 15.

Had a cool down ride after but I was pretty wiped out. Made my protein shake, jumped in the truck and started heading home, with XFL on my mind.

Bill
My state TT race report (inspired by Johns report)

Same as Johns report except for the race. I was estimating finishing the race around 1 hour 5 minutes. Not a very competitive time when compared to what the field would be running but a doable time for me.

I started out easy and kept telling myself “do not start too hard” we have 40K to go. It was a little over 9 miles to the first turn so I kept the pace steady and kept looking for a smooth place to ride on the road. There was no traffic so that was the easy part.

After the first turn I got some help from the wind so I started to crank up the speed. The straight away after the first turn was short that was followed by a left turn another short section then a right turn with a longer section that took us to the return route. I kept the speed up on these shorter sections and raced to each turn.

When I got on the return route, which was a 4 lane highway, the wind was coming in from the right side but not to bad so I settled in to a pace and got ready for the last stretch which was a bumpy road 5 miles long with a head wind.

The last 5 miles were the toughest part of the race. At one point I had my head down and was struggling to keep the power at 100% and my speed was slowing due to the head wind and I asked myself if I was going to make it to the finish line. At that time I lifted my head an saw the finish line just around the corner. With that my cadence started to build and the speed went up. Got close to 100 rpm cadence and shifted to the next gear. I kept building more cadence and shifting to higher gears. I stopped looking at the power and concentrated on the cadence and speed. I turned the last corner and pushed as hard as i could to the finish line. I crossed the finish line around 27 MPH and let off but I could not stop pedaling. I had to slam on the brakes before I got to the corner.

I was totally spent. I rode around a while and then got off the bike and started thinking about the next day. The Cross Florida ride.

My time was 1 hour 5 minutes 26 seconds. I finished at my estimated time. All in all a good race. I have a better understanding of my FTP and can use that to tailor the trainer workouts so I can build the FTP up and get faster for next years 40K State TT. Looking forward to it.

John Tenney’s report of his first Cross Florida ride:
Sunday April 6th

Up at 4:30, we packed and left the house at 5:15. Got to Alan Shepherd Park in Cocoa Beach around 6 am. Did the usual preparation stuff, said hi to many folks, and made frequent trips to the restroom of course. I was still pretty wiped out from the State Championship 40K Time Trial the day before.

At 7am we rolled out from Cocoa Beach on our way to the other coast. The first hour was fast, riding along at 25mph typically in a large peloton. We covered more than 21 miles even with two bridges to climb (causeway).

About mile 30 to 35 Crockett, Morgan and I dropped off the back of the Eastside group, which had been doing 18-19mph but had started picking it up to 21-22. Somebody was pulling too fast up there. We stayed together for several miles. Morgan eventually started feeling better again and took off to catch up with the pack.

Our first stop was at mile 48 and went according to plan. next, we went 23 more miles, but accidentally beat Kathleen to the scheduled stop – a convenient store / gas station that was inconveniently closed for repairs. We only waited about 15 minutes for her and enjoyed the rest. After this we scheduled stops every 10 or 15 miles or so, because it was now getting hot and we were going through our water supplies very fast. This interrupted our “plan” a bit but we were still on schedule to make all the time limits.

The whole time I was planning on calling it a day at some point and climbing in the truck with Kathleen to finish the ride. I was not expecting to have enough to make it to the end and was surprised when I started feeling better. At mile 127 I told Kathleen “I’m doing this!” and she was quite surprised. Crockett had told me to go on ahead and he would try to catch up. He was experiencing some stomach issues. (He did catch up after all, see below.)

Between mile 125 and mile 154 I got together with Kerry Smith, from Crystal River, who was willing to slow down a bit to ride with me. I was fighting “the bonk”, where my body had run out of easily accessible resources and was down to burning fat. I could only go 14 or 15 miles an hour on level ground, and unfortunately there wasn’t much of that left, as the course was getting rather “hilly.”

At the last stop I made, mile 154, I told Crockett (who was coming in as I was leaving) that I was glad to see him still rolling and would see him at the finish. Little did I know he would beat me to the finish by over an hour.

I skipped the last stop at mile 160 (Kathleen cheered for me as I rode by) and went on ahead to finish the last 7 miles. Somehow I followed a road marking that was two years old and “blacked out” but I still made the turn. There were road markings on this route also, although they looked a little worn. At this point, I was fatigued and just thinking about getting to the finish. I saw “<- XFL Finish!" on the road and turned in to a park. An empty park. Wrong park but I didn't know that. I rode all around the park looking for people. I had beat my goal of 12 hours (11:55) but where was everybody? I waited and waited. Nobody showed up. I rode around the park again. Found one lady who told me that this was not Bayport Park anymore, it's now Linda Jenkins Park and she didn't know exactly where Bayport was but it was "back that way."
How I got lost

I almost went further in the wrong direction, but turned back up the road I was on and found a jogger who gave me good directions. I was about 7 miles away, ugh. It was getting dark, I had no lights, and my phone was in the truck on the charger. Not good.

Fortunately I got back on the right road and Kathleen found me. I got lights out of my bag and finished the ride. I rode in to see Kathleen, Crockett and my new friend Kerry, waiting for me. It was embarrassing coming in so late (almost 13 1/2 hours) but I figured I had a great story.

Didn’t really want to hang around so we jumped in the truck and headed home. I was dreading the drive home. I thought it would be painful and long. It wasn’t. It was a fun reflection on the days activities as all three of us talked about the events of the day. Yes we were tired but we had done it, we had gotten through our first Cross Florida ride without serious incident.