The weather this year was much milder than last year. We started with the usual anti-climatic promenade out from Williams High School. The pace didn't start to pick up until people started jockeying for position before crossing Highway 20 and into the bumpy stuff. I wound up heading into the bumpy stuff 4th wheel. Just enough to hide in the draft and still have room to maneuver around obstacles/ exploding water bottles. A short time after we crossed 20, a rider took off solo and the field didn't respond. He definitely looked strong, but since he was a bigger rider, I figured he would be caught on the 3 mile climb.
I made sure to drink and eat at every oppurtunity I got since the road does not smooth out enough to take a hand off the bars for long. As we neared the foot of the climb, I made my way to the front and decided to open it up. I was grabbing gears every time I thought my legs could stand it, and a mile into the climb the peloton had dissapeared from sight behind me. One rider had gone with me and had fully bridged up to me. We took turns setting the tempo and crested the climb together and drilled it on the descent. The solo rider was nowhere to be seen, but by the time we got to the gravel hill we had spotted him and rode up to him. It was clear he was not interested in working together though and suged everytime he pulled through. We called him out on it and then without responding just sat on the front. Since he was still setting a good pace, we took respite on his wheel and a short while later he wound up popping a spoke and it was back down to the two of us.
At the second climb the lead moto was nice enough to get us a time check and came back with 4 minutes! The second descent was wide open and lead up to the feed zone. I took on two neutral bottles and to my surprise they were actually cold this year- awesome! The lead moto reported our lead was down to 3 minutes so we picked up the pace again. The last 15 miles of the race was flat but with a cross wind, a head wind, then a cross wind again on the lead-in to the finish. (Perfect for a break to stay away I thought to myself, as the reality of actually having a 50% chance of winning this race but a 100% chance of getting on the podium set in.)
Unfortunately about 5 miles from the finish, the other rider attacked after my pull (good strategy) and I didn't have the legs to respond. He dangled about 30 seconds in front of me, but it might as well been 30 miles, there was no way my legs could close that gap at this point in the race. So now I was solo, with the closing miles ticking off much too slowly. At last, the small dot of the finish appeared and I don't think I have ever been more excited to see a finish line! I coasted across the line in second and stayed to watch the chase group come in. I was excited to see that the gap had remained at 3 minutes!!! Now I have 6 upgrade points for Cat 3. I talked with the other rider in the break later and found out his win gave him enough points to upgrade to Cat 3- kudos to him!
