Tonight's TTT took Melissa, Shawn, Dusty, and me to Watopia for the Coast to Coast route, starting in the southern coast and finishing with a quick climb and then a descent on Jarvis Island. The excuses started flying while we were still in the starting pen -- a volleyball game yesterday for Melissa, a six-mile run for Dusty. Don't these people know how to prep for a race by sitting on a couch and eating donuts??

Despite all the excuses, we set a fast pace out of the starting gate, trying to hold off a hard-charging Brazilian team behind us that was nipping at our heels for the whole race. Melissa was hurting by the halfway point, and pulled out of the rotation, but still put in a huge effort and managed to stay with us the rest of the way. Her effort turned out to be a lifesaver, because Dusty started sliding off the back on the lower slopes of the Jarvis climb. With a four-person team, the third rider over the line determines the finishing time, so we were very fortunate to still have Melissa with us at that point. Shawn put in a big pull over the top of the climb, I took over on the descent, and then we sprinted for the finish line.

We ended up finishing in 38:55, about one second ahead of the team behind us, and one second behind the team in front of us (which is why every second counts in a race like this). We're currently sitting in 29th place out of 183 teams with a few west coast teams still wrapping up, and the fastest overall of the 24 four-person teams in our category -- one of our best results of the year. Great work everyone!

We will race again next Thursday night (keep an eye on the website for the sign-up link), and then take a couple of weeks off during the holidays before resuming in January.