The Final Stage

I don't know about anybody else but this is the longest stage race I have ever done. Most stage races are 3 stages, but you throw that extra stage in there and it makes a difference, lets face it, I am not getting any younger. So the 4th stage in 3 days is a 85 mile road race with around 5200ft of climbing. I have ridden the loop before and was really worried about this stage. It has three, 3mile climbs and you do the loop twice, so do the math. Did I mention that I am really tired, but I decided at the beginning of this stage I am finishing no matter what happens. So the race begins and I am sitting about 1:50 seconds down which is not bad. Everybody is just cruising along talking and 3 guys take off. Everybody just looks at each other because these guys are not in contention, but they are smart and I wish I would have gone with them. Why you ask, well they were getting a head start on the steepest climb of the day, smart move. Well long story short, I survived the first climb which is about 15miles into the race. The decent of this climb is super sketchy and some guys totally bombed it. At the bottom is a 90* left hand turn, that usually has a fair amount of gravel and dirt on it and I got gaped. The 2nd climb starts right after the turn and is super steep probably in the 10% range and doesn't let up for about a mile. I got popped bad, blew ski high and had to sit up. I chased for a while and about went of the side of the mountain on the decent trying to get back with the group, but it wasn't going to happen they were gone so I settled in and realized I had 60 miles to go. I caught some guys that had been dropped and one guy stayed with me and we suffered together to the finish. I still managed to average 18mph for the day and was happy that I finished. I ended up 23 out of 30 guys, but it was a great experience and I am still carrying good form into cyclocross because of it.