Cherry Blossom Stage 4

So, no recap for Stage 3.  Easy 4-corner crit, stayed safe and burned as little energy as possible.  Tried making my way to the front but kept loosing spots so resigned myself to hanging on the back.  Yeah, not the ideal spot but it was safe.


Stage 4:  2 small circuits, 2 big circuits, 41 miles, how bad could it possibly be?  The proper answer is "holy f*** what the hell just happened."


The race begins, Team O is on the front hammering hard.  While this is good my legs are by no means ready for this.  Make my way to the front and prepare to do as much wheel-sucking as possible.  I'm sitting 6th GC and really want to move into 5th at the very least by the end of the day.

2 small circuits down, the field stays together and we prepare for the fireworks heading into the big loop.  12 miles down, 29 to go.  Also, 1000 ft of climbing down, 3200 to go.  Joy.

The field explodes on the first real climb of the day.  And when I say climb I'm talking about a 3k long suffer-fest, into the wind, pitches of anywhere from 5-17%.  I didn't make the lead group but settled into a decent chase group.  After the decent we eventually made contact with the lead group, only to have the field split again. Found the chase group, shattered that and made 3rd GC work his balls off to get us back to the lead group.  The field had shattered so badly at this point that the support vehicle was right behind us.  If there was one thing I was not going to let happen it was letting that vehicle past me.

absolutely cracked out of my mind
(photo credit:  David Mackintosh)

We made it.  I look around and there's 3 of us (Team O) in the lead group of 11.  While my legs were totally destroyed two of our guys took flyers off the front, just to make the field hurt a little bit more.  It worked, down to 9.  Entering the final corner I tried, I really really did try to make it up that hill first.  My legs detonated at the 200m to go sign.  I simply sat down and pedaled the rest of the way up the hill.  My legs felt like someone had just ripped the muscle from the bone and left it laying at the last corner.

That all said and done, I advanced to 4th GC with Will coming in right behind me for 5th.  This result gives us both the points we were looking for towards our Cat 2  upgrades!

To be totally honest, I was quite surprised with this result.  Coming off San Dimas I was disappointed with my performance and a little bummed about travelling so far just to not make the time cut.  That said, I was pleasantly surprised with fitness at this race.

Lastly, this race would have been tremendously different without the help of my teammates.  Jeff, Will, Clemens, Phelan, Zac and Tony.  The support both on and off the bikes was amazing, you are an awesome group of guys and I'm very happy we had the opportunity to spend the week out there crushing it (for the most part).