90 miles of pain

Today, I decided to train. To ride my bike even though I didn't want to and the only thing I could still think about was being time cut yesterday. I met Zach at the foot of Mount Magazine the 9 mile climb that the race would go up later. We were riding it for training. He had been resting all week and wanted to make a hard go of the climb; I just wanted to get it done. He dropped me in the first 2 miles which were the steepest. As I was climbing the Cat 3 race caught me. I was expecting to see D'go in the front group. D'go is a small guy who is coming up through the ranks in NOLA fast! While living under sea level he is about the closets thing that New Orleans will ever have of a climber. Well he wasn't in the first group or the second. Finally I saw him coming up to me. I figured that I didn't want to be shown up by a 17 year old Cat 3 so I decided to pick it up. When the gradient would lessen I would shift to my big ring and take off shifting back down when it got steep. I was sure he was going to catch me. For a while I would scoot away on the less steep stuff only to see him coming back on the steeper stuff. With about 10k to go I was able to shift into my big ring and stay there for the most part of the remaining ascent. At the top I saw Zach who said he hadn't finished that long ago :), and Andres the director of our Developmental Team. After a quick chat the "Old Man" rolled up to us after winning the masters race. Zach, the "Old Man" and I all started to descend. It was good practice to be riding with these two as they both are experienced in descending. Once at the bottom Zach turned to climb the mountain again. The Old Man and I continued back to the feed zone to feed the elite guys. We were keeping a good pace because we had 40 minutes before the peleton was expected to come through he feed zone and we were about 10 miles away with about a 20 mph head wind!!! I was trying to pull as long as possible to save the Old Man's legs for the Crit the next day. When he did pull he almost dropped me on some of the hills --- STRONG Old Man was more like it! We made it to the feed zone in time and saw the break coming - a Mercy guy was in it! It was Alex. I would learn later that he was in the break for about 90 miles with Karl Menzies and some other pro. At dinner he said it was 90 miles of pain. Regardless, he did an awesome job. They ended up getting caught on the climb but Menzies still managed to get a top 20. The day was done. I went back to my host house and got ready for the 10 hour drive back to NOLA.