by Shawn Rosenthal There was no sitting on the couch racing Gran Turismo to prep me for this rollercourse of a time trial. The course is a hair under 8 miles with hills reaching the 10% range and descents raising speeds to 50mph.

Saturday's race left the legs a little heavy and being almost 5 minutes back in GC and knowing the circuit race is the following day, I was wondering why I'd try in the time trial. Some part of me decided that I should give it a go. I dragged around an extra bike all week, might as well give it a spin.

Studying for the GREs through the day, I was posting great scores on the quantitative section, getting every problem right. The one equation I failed at was the time I'd need to leave at. It takes time to get out the door? It takes more than 5 minutes to drive 30 miles? Nevertheless, the warmup was short. Again, I wouldn't have gotten to my race on time had it not been for our Energizer bunny of a mechanic, Caesar.

The first half, I rode up the hills hard & backed off the power any time the speed was over 32mph. I coasted down a hill for 90 seconds, getting fully rested for the 2.5 minute climb. I hit that as hard as I could. I paid the price and in agony, fought my bike to finish the day.

Some went fast. Others went really fast.

Kirk Carlson (Predator) and Justin Rossi (Marc Pro Strava) lit it up to finish 1st and 2nd respectively.

Roman finished 11th in 18:02, 37 seconds off the pace

I finished 14th, 42 seconds off the pace

Holloway finished 24th, 57 seconds off the pace