Dogwood Trail Time Trial

All the endurance sports outlets made a big deal last week about the Lance Armstrong/Chris Lieto Twitter Time Trial on Hawaii's Queen K highway. Well, I challenged Knoxville's own Allan J. Hamilton to a Dogwood Trail Time Trial (pdf) this past Sunday.

By the numbers:

• 2 men
• 2 pairs of reflective tights
• 1 pair of insulated shoe covers
• 9.1 miles
• 39 degrees

Bitter winds took their toll on my fingers. Halfway through, I could barely shift gears. At the end, my lungs felt like they were lined with liquid nitrogen. If I haven't mentioned it before, I'm not a cold-weather guy; I do much better in the heat.

Still, though, I mustered one of my fastest rides of the year to take the win. In 28:02, at a speed of 19.5 mph, I beat Allan by just over two minutes. The last time I tried this, back in August, it took me 28:45 at 18.9 mph. It was a good, fair race, and it led me to postulate a theorem on average speed, which will be found in my next post.