Race Report: Team Time Trial
Utica, IL
by Team Power Love

This is how to race a team time trial:

First, you should train for this. Spending the three weeks before a team time trial doing sedentary activities such as writing, talking, watching movies, and having the occassional drink, does not prepare one for 60km at threshold. And I mean Pascale's threshold, not your threshold.
Second, make sure the rest of your team is a group of people that you are crazy about and that they have been training for the aforementioned three weeks.

Third, shut up and hang on.

Fourth, maybe you might want to have a time trial bike, though this is optional, as evidenced by Kristen Meshberg's ass-hauling ride sans even aero bars. Wow.

We were hauling ass pretty much the whole first part of the race even though it was into the wind and then Pascale said, "We should really push it on the way back, if we can," and that is when this reporter realized that this reporter was not so much in the shape that one should be in for such an endeavor.

However, we are nothing if not communicative, this group, so eventually we turned into the Great Two-Person Time Trialing Team of Petro and Meshberg and Ginger and this reporter filed our nails in the back. It is very important to have well-manicured hands when doing a time trial in Really Crappy Weather in Small Town, USA.

Besides suffering the Attack of the Lactic Acid, there were other obstacles to contend with. Namely, two crashes. The first, where an EMT was standing in the middle of the road waving his arms, which meant, "Hey, if you're an airplane, land here!" Or else it meant, "Um, upcoming riders, slow the hell down." We slowed. How do you be respectful to someone who has gone down and still keep racing? This reporter does not know.

The second crash, a group of Apaches, and this reporter sends best wishes of good vibes and speedy recovery to Mary Roe and Barb Hansen. Frightening to see your friends standing at the side of the road with an ambulance.

This reporter would also like to say at this point: up yours, Team Mack. Trying to pass us on the left while we were passing the ambulance is just ridiculously unsafe and shitty. Yelling at us to get out of your way while passing us on the left while we were passing the ambulance is just self absorption to the nth degree. Just in case you don't know--you're a bunch of old men racing in a time trial in Nowheresville, IL. You're really not as important as you think you are. But most people already know that you'll never get that.

We got to the end, when Pascale and Kristen actually started turning it on, and this left this reporter breathlessly scared because, OMYGOD, these two can haul it. Haul. It. Then this reporter was like, "Oh shit, do we have to sprint now?" And they were like, "No use it up now!" And this reporter was like, "It has already been used up!" And off in the distance, the finish line kept running away, like, hello, you do not need to move out of town before we get to you.

And then finally, the end and this reporter's legs were pretty much cashed out, along with this reporter's brain.

The Petro/Meshberg duo is one fierce combo. Yowza. I bet you could light the city of Chicago with the watts they were generating.