Pursuit vs. Timmer

I spent yesterday evening at the Velodrome. I like to be a jack of all trades type of racer, so it was exciting for me to get my feet wet on a new discipline. Granted, I've got a long ways to go before I could ever call myself a 'trackie', and I'm not really sure I want to be participating in the mass start races up there. I got there early enough to get out on the boards and see what it felt like. I was nervous about hitting my feet on the corners but after I got up to speed it didn't seem to be a problem. At first the whole thing made me dizzy. Then, it started to feel like it was all downhill. The hard kind of downhill, where you have to keep pedaling hard, but still fast. I got in about 20 laps and then there got to be too many people out there for my tastes and I sat in the grass. It was interesting to see the races, they are short but exciting, it's kind of funny to see people attack when they can't shift and have to pedal really fast. But obviously that's part of it. I had my TT bike with gears, which is all I have. I figured it would be an advantage at the start for sure. Timmer and I got our chance to go and line up on opposite sides of the track. I started as hard as I could, even though Casper told me not to. In about 4 laps Timmer was in my sights but I wasn't closing any more. When I saw 6 to go I'd about blown myself up. I was weaving all over the place at first but I settled in and held my line as the laps ticked down. With 2 to go I started feeling better again and drove it home, closing just a bit more on Timmer, but I never had a chance of catching him. It was great to have such a strong rider as a rabbit and it definitely helped me. I clocked a 3:31 which was better than I expected for my first attempt. I saw at Masters Nationals the winning time in the 30-35 3k was 3:41 or something so I'm curious to try a few more. Next time I'm going to need to ride a fixed gear and see how that feels. Thanks for the opportunity everyone, it was a fun night of racing.