Phoenix, AZ — For some reason I could hardly sleep last night. I felt like I was laying in bed all night. I think I only got four hours of sleep. Maybe it was due to the time trial…the first hard effort of the season really jolted my system? I don’t know. I ended up getting up at 4:17 AM before the alarm went off. I wanted to eat early since I had a 7:30 AM start, but I really didn’t feel like eating much. I just stared at my breakfast for quite a while. I did manage to get some calories in but not nearly enough for a 57-mile race.
I felt sorry for Ted as he had to come with me this early to go out to the road race course since his race followed mine. While loading the car, there was a coyote walking around the neighborhood! It looked liked it was trying to find a way out of the subdivision and didn’t seem too concerned about me. It was about 42° this morning and it was still dark when we got to the course. The volunteers told us to park straight in on the north side of the road. Since we couldn’t see the start area, we just started walking down the road so we could sign in. After walking for a while we realized that the starting area was further than we had thought. But since we had gone that far, we figured we might as well keep walking! We finally found it and I signed in. We were going to get a feedzone parking pass but decided that we wouldn’t need it for my race. Since my start time was approaching we jogged back to the car so I could get ready. That jog ended up being my warmup. When I got to the line I had only 10 minutes to spare.
The sun was barely coming over the mountains at that point and it was still cold. I wore arm and leg warmers and full-finger gloves. We started out down the hill and it was freezing! The course was basically a triangle which we did 3.5 times. The feedzone and finish line were on the other side of the course from where we started. The first time up the hill, the pace was decent. I felt fine and stayed near the front. The top five riders were from 3 separate teams. And each one of those teams had at least six riders. So I was in the position to just play off of their tactics. I never had to chase anything, which made it nice since I didn’t have any teammates. The climb warmed me up a little but the second time down the hill I got cold again.
The second time up the hill was a KOM lap. The pace picked up right from the bottom turn and progressively got harder as we approached the top. I definitely was at my limit for that climb! I still managed to stay in the top-half of the field, but it was extremely hard. This was the first time I had gone that hard all season. Things eased up after the KOM sprint so I had time to recover. The third time up the hill it was much easier and I made the decision conserve as much as possible. If the finishing climb is as fast as the KOM, I’d be in trouble!
But another lap went by and there were small attacks here and there, but nothing major got off. Most of the attacks were from non top-five riders, so the top three teams would do all the chasing. The final time up the climb to the finish wasn’t too bad for me. It was actually warm out by that point and I was feeling better. I stayed towards the front. With 1 KM to go I was in the top 15 spots, but once the sprint started, I couldn’t make up any places. I ended up 14th with no major changes to GC. Right after my finish, I rode straight to the car about 7 miles away. It was a good cooldown.