More Pain.

The last two days have been a bit… blurry.

The second day of the Green Mountain Stage Race went more or less according to plan. One rider soloed in for a 38 second advantage over the rest of us. This did not change the GC as he began the day 55 seconds back after the time trial. I did as little work as possible and pretty much had a boring 70 mile ride around Vermont. The only excitement in yesterdays race was provided by the 4 crashes. All within the last ten miles of the race. I didn’t see any of them as they all happened behind me. This makes me a bit nervous for the crit tomorrow. But ill get to other reasons I’m nervous about tomorrow in a second.

Today was the big day. The penultimate stage of this race. Ahead was eighty miles and two mountains. The yellow jersey only had eleven seconds on me.

About four hours latter and with just 1 kilometer left, I came around a corner to see the top of Appalachian gap in front of me. The last 500 meters are the steepest with grades well over 20%. The only thing I can remember was suddenly seeing Dave T and Keith running besides me urging me on. I screamed at them to push me up this fucking hill. I crossed the line and the only thing I could say was “someone catch me”.

Thanks to the kind dude Matt C from Affinity who caught me.

I won the stage and took over the lead in the GC.

Tomorrow I have to defend it in the crit.

Just one more day left.