US Pro Nationals

Coming into this race I was very excited to be racing against the best of the best in the US but also pretty nervous. This would be my biggest race I have ever done to date. The game plan was to get Freddie his 4th title which meant we needed to have as many guys in the group with him after the fourth time up Paris Mountain. My job for the day was to cover the early moves, get water and just make it as easy as possible for the rest of the guys to get to the finish as fresh as possible.

Race profile-4laps

The race started with 3 short laps about 3 miles in distance before we headed out to the bigger laps of where we would do 4laps. Those first opening laps were really fast, single file and really hard. I could not believe that we still had over 100miles to go because it just felt like I was racing in the last 5 laps of a crit. Once we started the big laps I got up towards the front to stay out of trouble. By doing this I made it into the first real break of the day.  We were brought back and this is when Garmin went to the front to set a good tempo. Before I knew it I was in the big split with about 40 of us up the road. I never looked back because all I was concerned about was making it over Paris Mountain the first time with the first group. I dropped back on the climb and with about the 1k to the top I was already out the back. I was shocked because there was only about 40 riders and this is when I knew there was a big split and I needed to stay with this lead group. I tried to catch on during the decent but was unable to. This is when myself and another rider were in no mans land between the lead group and the peloton. We decided to sit up and wait for the peloton to catch us.

Lead group of 40

I was back with the peloton and went right back to work. Freddie said to get to the front to start rotating to help keep the gap at a reasonable gap because there was still some big favorites in that lead group that we could not let go. Coming into Paris Mountain for the second time I knew I needed to make it over with this group or my race was done. Once again I slipped out the back with a 1k to the top and was unable to make it back, my race was over. In the end I was pretty disappointed but cant be too mad because that was my first road race. Doing crits all season that last from 1hr-2hrs is not exactly the perfect preparation for a race like this. I learned a lot from this race and am looking to using that for the rest of the season.

I currently have a break in the race schedule for the next month. I will be back in Colorado resting up and getting ready for the second half of the season. My next race will be in the beginning of July in Canada the Tour de Delta.