So the time trial came and passed. Nick arrived at Incyte at 10:45 with his new Trek carbon-fiber 5200 that he just purchased on Ebay, I had expected that Nick would show for the time trial on a new road bike to give himself a better chance to win. We all rode to Deer Creek and established the finish line then rode to the the starting line. Here we took off in intervals of 2 minutes, starting with Nick then Val, Gregg, Hilario, Willis, Tom, Kevin and Myself. Anthony and Hanz were there to assist on the start for each rider. As each rider waited their turn to ride, Anthony gave a count down, which in turn made some of the riders anxious, including myself. All the riders started out on a full sprint looking strong and intimidating. When I finally started my ride, the first approach was a turn on an incline. By this time my legs, lungs and throat were burning, as I continued with my ride my thoughts were on the pain I was experiencing and thinking I could be "dust"( you know, in trouble on defending my rank). I felt my age and fatigue already catching up to me, and the ride was just beginning. My thought was to press on and just give it a good shot, thoughts were going through my mind that I was going to be beat by at least one or two guys. My breathing was deep and almost hyper-ventilating. The feeling of a large bellow in my chest trying to feed more oxygen through my body and legs to calm the burning that seemed useless. As the ride proceeded, I had actually caught Kevin in my site, at first thinking I was doing well. But knowing Kevin is such a strong rider, the next thought was possibly something was bothering him and he was struggling. I decided I would not get too excited and falsely lead myself on using Kevin as a gauge on my time. As I Turned onto Deer Creek, I noticed my time to be in the low 16:00, thinking that I was going to possibly finish in the high 16:00. This gave me a lot of encouragement but still not knowing how everyone else finished. As I started my sprint downhill and approached the incline, I felt the strong headwind and really slowed my momentum. I could see Kevin just finishing ahead of me and all eyes were on me as everyone anxiously waited for the time of the last rider. As I crossed the finish line, I heard someone ask my time ( I had posted a mark of 17:50), as I mentioned my mark, I heard a collective "awe". This gave me a hint that I possibly had come in first and successfully defended my time. When I turned around and gathered with the group, I was told officially that my mark was the winning time. This was a good feeling but didn't alleviate the pain and fatigue I was going through until I had caught my wind. I remembered why we only do this once in great while, "IT HURTS AND IS VERY TIRING"!