Tonight we made a trip to Scotland for our Zwift team time trial, for three (and a half) laps of the Rolling Highlands course.

Carson, Melissa, Shawn, and I lined up at 6:20 PM. The excuses were already flowing before we even started -- Shawn was tired from Tuesday's race, Melissa is still battling a cold, etc. That didn't stop anyone from putting in strong performances though. The course is fun, living up to its name with constant little ups and downs, and precious little flat ground. We started out with Melissa out of the rotation due to her sickness, just hanging on to help with the draft for the rest of us. Carson, Shawn, and I traded 60-second pulls, starting out at 3.6 W/kg for the first lap.

Melissa was cracking jokes and bantering during the first lap, and seemed to be doing OK, so I turned up the heat on the second lap and bumped us up to 3.8 W/kg. That definitely increased the effort level a bit, but she was still going on about some kind of broccoli cookie recipe during the second lap, so we continued to ramp it up. By the third lap Shawn was telling some kind of story about a mule, my oxygen-deprived brain couldn't really follow the details.

The mule story must have taken a lot out of Shawn, as he was starting to drop back halfway through the final lap. Eventually he pulled the plug, and Carson helped pick up the slack with some long pulls as we approached the finish. Despite her sickness, Melissa hung through to the end and unleashed a nice sprint up the final climb, posting a couple of PRs along the way. We hit the finish line with a time of 46:12, good for 97th place in our division. Carson got into the excuse game during the post-ride cooldown, offering up a trio of somewhat-dubious excuses for his third-place finish in Tuesday's race, including a long day at work and something about a disrupted playlist.

Next Thursday we'll be back in Watopia for two laps of the Ocean Lava Cliffside Loop. If you've got some good excuses prepared for your performance, we'd love to hear them -- come and join us!