So after a very long 8 hour drive we pull into the hotel to be met with a clerk saying he had "no reservations by that name". Shortly after that Mike and I figured out Hekman should've already been there and had the gotten both rooms. A quick call to the room and we were all set.
Not sure why but I was more then a little intimidated Saturday morning lining up for the road race. Maybe it was the thoughts of knowing I had a 5km climb just a bit down the road or maybe even worrying about a crazy fast descent towards the finish.
On down the road, 2 guys were off the front, my legs weren't feeling great and I wasn't happy at the back of the pack. So I decided to stir things up a bit and bridge. About a mile after I bridged to the leaders we were joined by 1 other to make 4. We worked pretty well together and my legs started to wake back up. Then we hit the base of the climb, soon I was popped and sliding back towards the peleton. As I'm climbing I was thinking, and believe me I had a LOT of time to do so, I've never climbed anything this big before. I started to recover about 3/4 of the way up and started gaining back time on some of the other people who'd cracked. Going over the rollers I was moving along pretty good then joined in with a foursome who were moving along pretty strong. We could see the next group up the road but everytime I tried to push the pace to bring us closer nobody seemed to have anything to help.
After slogging through the headwind on the last road we hit the descent that I was so worried about. With the headwind the speed was kept way down so I quickly learned it wasn't that bad after all. Just for giggles the final 1.5mi is all up hill. I rode away from the group I was in, for a lousy 33rd place finish, all the while wondering if I should have tried to bridge myself along the rim before the headwind.
