The next day we drove to Palmdale, CA. On Saturday, June 12th, the California Racing Association held its state championship time trial in Palmdale, CA. Uhl and I thought it would be a great measuring stick for how well I was time trialing. Uhl did the time trail on his road bike with aerobars. I rode my beautiful Javelin time trail bike with my aero front Reynolds wheel and disk wheel in the rear. This was my chance to make sure how the bike worked. We were hoping there would be a huge turnout, but the turnout was less than we hoped. The course was a 40km flat and fast out and back. There was a 25-30 mile an hour tailwind out and the same headwind back. It was a funny sight to see everyone warming up on their trainers. We were all lined up on one side of the road, behind one another on our trainers. It looked like we were racing and going nowhere. I was the first person off the for the Women 1-3 category. There was a 3-minute gap between categories, so I had no one to chase. I tried to focus and push the time trial the entire way. With 10 km to go, I was dying, wondering what I was doing cycling. Two of the Cat 1 men and a tandem passed me. I finished with a time of 1:00:22, which was the second fasted time for the women (50 seconds back). Uhl did the time trial in 57:22. Uhl and I usually time trial pretty close to one another, and a time trial bike with aero wheels gives you a huge advantage on a flat 40km course. Needless to say, Uhl time trialing three minutes faster than me on his road bike was a bad sign. I began to hope that I would not embarrass myself at trials. I seriously began to wonder if it was better to not try than to try and fail miserably. Since this has been such a big goal, I decided it was better to try and fail miserably, so I couldn’t wonder “what if.”