I start out on Tony's wheel...which is the first mistake IMO. He produces literally no draft, so every time he went out on a monster pull, it was almost like I was pulling too. We're heading out and after 3 rotations, I let Pavel in front of me to change the order. Works out for me since now I'm sitting in a nicer draft, but now Burt is getting killed in Tony's draft. Pavel does some nice work up front too, and while things are tough, I never had the urge to drop off on the first half as we averaged 29.5 on the way out.

But as soon as we hit the turnaround, things went to hell. I think the adrenaline hit, and the pace got jacked up. I needed to jump out of the saddle just to latch back onto Burt's wheel. Tony was up front, then Pavel, then Burt. After Tony was done with his pull, I made the fatal error of letting him back into the line in front of me. Pavel does his pull, then Burt, then Tony decides to go on a long pull. I'm getting no draft, and a gap is opening. I yell about 3 times for him to slow down, and he does, but speeds back up. He finally pulls off, but at that point, I was beyond red lined and couldn't jump back into the back of the line after I pulled off...and if I did, I felt that I would only be slowing them down at that point. I just cruised the last 10 miles in.

I was mentally defeated. I felt helpless as they rode away, just hoping I did enough, but feeling I should have done more. Burt mentioned he was getting killed on the way back, and they had to slow down for him a couple of times...but I know he gave it his all.

We ended up 2nd overall, losing to BOCA by 8 seconds. The feeling was sickening.

We needed more experience riding with each other and knowing each others limits. It's amazing how complicated a TTT is. With an ITT, you just manage your own effort. There is very little decision making or areas to screw things up. But with a team, everyone has to be in tune with each other to make it work.