State Time Trial Championship--B-Town cleans up!

This weeks training led up to the Indiana State Time Trial Championship race up near Ft. Wayne (oddly enough, the IN state course actually goes into OH for several miles before the turn around). This is a 40k course, or 24.8miles, but people's times seem a little slower here than at "our" standard course at Monrovia. Interesting because while Monrovia is considered a flat course, it has 180' of climbing while the Ft Wayne course climbs just 79'. It turns out the Ft Wayne course is a touch long. I clocked it at 25.1miles and I clock Monrovia at 24.7miles. That's why times are a bit slower up north.
Anyway, two friends and I headed up after work on Saturday. It's ~3hrs of driving and the start was 8:30am on Sunday so we had to stay up there. Our hotel was close enough that we could just ride over to the start, which pretty awesome; it was probably 1.5miles. Though riding that 1/5miles through the small town of New Haven in full aero gear was a little awkward, we made it no problem. All of our start times were a little after 9am, so we got our numbers ~7:30 and went back to the hotel to chill for a bit.
Once ready to roll, we rode over to the course, got in warm-ups and were ready to go.
I could tell I was feeling pretty good. There was going to a be a steady cross wind pushing us out, but the same cross wind in our faces coming back. No matter though, since I'd never ridden this course I had no time as reference to try to beat and everyone was going to have to deal w/ the same conditions; all I had to do was ride hard the whole time. Once I got going and settled in I felt good. I knew I was going fast, but I wasn't feeling any real pain, so I just kept turning the gear over, stayed aero and tried to stay focused (which is hard when you're hammering solo for an hour w/ nothing but fields around you). I hit the turn-around at 27min on the dot, did some quick math and realized I was going pretty good. But then I remembered that cross/headwind I was going to have to deal with and knew my back time would be slower than my out. As expected my cadence and speed dropped coming back, but I still was feeling good, so I stayed at it. There were a few big wind gusts coming back that pushed me around a little and screwed w/ my rhythm, but I was able to keep going good. You can see the finish line for a mile or more on this course, which is deceiving, but I had planned to stay on rhythm until I got to the 1k to go sign, then drop to my hardest gear and go all-out. I didn't have power recorded, but I was putting out the watts (for a skinny dude) for that last 1k (~1.5minutes) and finished in a solid 55.46. I won the State TT title for Cat 3 men*. Unfortunately I have to caveat my win, because I was the only Cat3 racing. So all I had to do was finish to win. But, I turned in a time good enough for 8th overall against a very strong field of TTers. And looking at last years Cat3 times I would have won anyway (not that last years times have ANY bearing on this years, but still...) I was a little bummed I had no competition, but happy w/ my ride/time and happy w/ my result, even if it was a given.
As for Bloomington sweeping the states, Eric Hamilton won the Cat1/2 title, I won the 3 title, Jonathan Atwell won the Cat4 title and Ryan Shanahan won the Mas 35-39 title.
No racing this coming weekend for me, then it's one week until TT Nats...then it's a break!