Pinole Team Time Trial
8 March 2008

Who raced: Holly Borowski

Holly's report:
Location: Orinda, California
Course: ~16-mile, rolling hills finishing on the "Three Bears"--3 significant ~5-7 min climbs in quick succession
# starters: 4 teams
Place: 4th (although 2nd-4th were all within 10 seconds)
Teammates: We raced in 2-person teams. I was paired with Maria Monica, a Touchstone teammate of mine.
Report: This was really more of a fun training day than a race! It's not often that you get to do a team time trial! The Touchstone women were broken into 3 teams of 2, with super time trialists Kelly McDonald and Pat Ross together. I was with Maria Monica, a pure climber. Our plan was for me to do more work on the flats and downhill sections, while Maria would set pace up the hills. In retrospect I should've set pace up the hills, to avoid what happened: We had an incredible start and quickly passed our teammates Olivia and Janeen. We were pacing it well and felt great. Then, on one of the early rollers (~1-2 minutes) Maria pulled. I hung on to her wheel, but was really red-lined. It only took this short effort to send me over the edge. In the next rolling section, when I should've been doing most of the work, I had to spend a lot of time recovering on Maria's wheel. I was really suffering and my pulls were ineffective, but I kept doing what I could. We were passed back in this section by our teammates. Then we hit the final "Three Bears" section, and I hung on for dear life....or rather I didn't quite hang on! I had to tell Maria to slow down a number of times, as I was blowing up and she was nearly riding away from me up the hills. Luckily I started coming around before the final hill. The race finished on a small roller just after "Papa Bear," which we did perfectly--as soon as I got my momentum coming down the hill, I came around Maria and hammered. Then as it kicked up again, she came around me to sprint--I could barely hold her wheel but I sprinted as hard as I could. We finished in a time just two seconds slower than our teammates Olivia and Janeen. Pat and Kelly (true TT specialists) blew us all away, putting 2 minutes into us. In fact, they also beat both of the 4-person Proman teams. I am definitely taking TT notes from those two this season!