Fitchburg Stage 3

Welcome back for another day in Paradise here....

Today's stage was a 50 mile circuit race in downtown that proved to be deceptively difficult...

I slept in until the 12th hour... so boom knock on the door, speed shower and super speed to get the kit rocking and I was on my bike out the hotel doors. I went so fast I didn't even pin my number on.

So I warmed up by TT'ing it to the course (about 6 miles away), I got their with time to spare for sign in and number pinning, lucky me. Today's goals for the team were for me to be at the front and get into some early moves and then hold on until the finish.

The race was hard from the gun, but the end we averaged 27.70mph for the 50 miles..... Mind you this is with almost 2.5km uphill. So I got into the moves early on and was not feeling great, the downhill sections added some recovery for the legs but not for the nerves as there were constant jocking for position.

I felt the opposite in this race as the road race, it seemed every time we went up the climb I was hurting more and more. We sent a guy off with 1 to go and it almost worked as he got caught on the downhill section, I was sitting pretty for a top 20 finish and my legs shot the wall going up the climb and I finished in the group around 51st.

The week of racing is starting to add up, as is sleeping in a hotel room this long. But we have a guy sitting in 19th in GC, I moved up a few spots after the crash and I am 12 minutes down. Tomorrow is the final day... A mere 28 mile long crit in downtown... I have not seen the course, but hope to place well after a hard 10 days...

Hope all is well with everyone and I'll see you soon