8/19 - Keenesburg RR

Due to the wild fires in northern CO this year the state RR championships were canceled and moved to this Keenesburg.  I only registered a few days before the race, it was a long one too 92 miles, I had never done a RR that long before.  The CAT 3 group was supposed to start with the 1/2's as well but we ended up having 15-20 guys so we started 5 mins after them.  Walter rode over from Louisville with me for our noon start time, it was a 4 hour race flat 4 loop course on a hot sunny day.  The race was very well run, the only issue was that it was self supported, which meant only 3 bottles for 92 miles unless I wanted to stop.  Walter an I started with the 15-20 CAT 3's, the first 3 laps were uneventful.  A few breaks which I tried on each were caught quickly.  The 4th lap I was down to half a bottle of water.  At 12 miles to go 3 of us went on a break, one guy fell off so it was Steve from Foxtrot and myself for a few miles.  We worked really hard together to put in time on the group, one more guy bridged up Chris from RMRC, he sat in for a bit till he got his breath back.  The last 8 miles or so all three of us took pulls and steadily put a gap between us and the group.  I was hurting really bad, but so were the other two.  I knew I had to go a little earlier than them to win the sprint, at 500 meters to go I took off right in the middle of my pull.  I don't think they could react or just did not expect it at 500 meters, I got the win by about 3 seconds over Chris and Steve took third.  I was beat up and thirsty that was a very tough RR, but should put me in great shape for Steamboat in two weeks.

1st place
Time - 3:38:50
92 miles
24.6 avg
268 watts