Mt Evans Hill climb - 7/21

Mt Evans is a 14er on the front range that has a bike race every year to the summit.  I did this race last year without knowing the course at all, this year I thought I had a better chance.  Shanon decided to come up and watch as well.  Cat 3's were started last so around 10:30 we were off, I stayed with the lead pack for the first 12 miles or so.  After that things began to split up, I fell off the back and rode for a long time with two other guys.  We traded turns up front and after a while we were down to just two.  Past Echo lake and summit lake the air starts to get a little thin and it is very hard to maintain a decent power output.  With about 4 miles to go a few guys that were coming down said that the race was over and turn around now.  At first I thought this was just some sort of nonsense, but with about 3 to go the park service and the race director were turning racers around.  Apparently there was lightning at the peak and at 14k' this can be quite dangerous.  So we headed down to summit lake to pick up our gear bags, the gear bags were not there so we waited a little while then started a chilly decent.  It rained and hailed a little on the way down, so though I was a little disappointed I think it was the right call by the race officials.  Maybe next year they can get off the racers all a little earlier.  I ended my day 3 miles from the summit at 2 hours so I think a 2:20 or so would have been my overall time if I had been able to finish.  Either way I finished 14th place in the CAT 3 division.