ToA - I thought the hard part was done

Going into the Tour of Arkansas it was really hard to convince myself that I would be making it past the first day. Well, I did. That really only meant that I made it over to the next day to suffer - I was actually really happy. The next day had about half as much climbing at a little over 5,000 feet and was a mountain top finish up the dreaded NEBO! My goal, to make it over the first 3 mile climb up Petit Jean with the group and recover on the flat sections ahead. We would cross Petit Jean again but it would be only 30 miles from the finish the second time. We start and after a short neutral roll out the attack started coming. I was feeling fine. We were rolling between 30 and 35 on the way to the first climb and I was not on the rivet at all. We hit the climb and I started close to the front maybe in the top 20 (Brice Jones, our Director for the weekend, told me to start in the top 5 but have you ever tried to get up to the top 5 in a pro race....yeah). I made it up the first little pitch but then they just started going faster!!! I fell off of the back along with a couple other guys. After the descent we ended up with a group of about 8 of us that were fighting to make the time cut. We all made it to the second time up Petit Jean together and started climbing. Spear Chucker fell off slightly before the climb and the BMC guy I was with yesterday fell off at the very bottom. I lost contact with the group about halfway up and continued to climb as fast and steady as a rock can. The group of 5 summited about 600 meters in front of me. I came across maybe 60 to 90 seconds back. I was kinda expecting to see them at the top of the ridge but they were no where in sight. I started chasing to try and get back in but to no avail. I ended up TTing the next 30 miles solo to the final climb. As I met the foot of the climb spray painted on the ground there were the words "WELCOME TO KNEE BLOW!" Yeah this climb is the most difficult climb I have ever done (it was a bit easier than the time I did it back in 2006). The gradient reach upward to 25% with most of it being around 18% for a little over 2 miles straight up. I missed the time cut by 10 minutes. I was hurt, not just physically mentally and emotionally. To pour everything into 30 miles to be time cut by 10 min. The group of 5 in front of me made the time cut. I don't know their margin but they had about 8 minutes on me at the feed zone about 15 miles from NEBO so who knows. Tomorrow, I would get to feed the race, and watch a race that I should be in.