Today we woke to some light rain and very cool temperatures. Not what I was hoping for going into a 94 mile road race, I like it when it is hot but the cool temps may have been a blessing in disguise. In years past this is the penultimate stage and is usually stage 3 but since the 4th of july landed on day 2 they switched the stages around because the circuit race is usually stage 2 is in downtown fitchburg. After my less than stellar TT I was a bit nervous of what was to come, I have never raced a hilly 94 mile road race, sure I have done the Hills of Somerset, but this has a ton more climbing. We drove up to the feedzone and we were greeted by the Human Zoom entourage complete with the van and tent. Everyone had their bottle nicely marked and filled with their mix or water of choice. I dropped Anna off at the feedzone, she was going to hang out there and feed when needed. Turns out she was an awesome and provided endless feeds for me and I am sure most of the Human Zoom team. Thanks Anna! I am sure there are better ways you could have spent your fourth! She was flawless, I never missed a feed, even as I blazed thru at fast speeds.

The Cat 2 men’s race was 94 miles and that sounded hard, I figued about 4-4.5 hours in the saddle. I was close I made to the top of Mt. Wachusset in exactly 4hr’s. Pretty fast considering a lot of climbing. The race rolled off in usual fashion with a few attacks and everyone jockying for position. My legs were screaming, and I could not wait for a few laps to pass because I knew they would come around. I made a point to climb near the front on most laps or at least make sure to get close enough to the front as to avoid splits. On lap 2 a big pile up happened to the left of me. Just as I moved to the right because I could sense something was going to go down. This one sketchy rider was right in front of me and I have been on his wheel before, not a great place to be. Dude needs to learn. Anyhow, I narrowly avoided it and a few dudes missed hitting me and went into the ditch! We climbed and rode and eat and drank and climbed and rode. I think I ate 1/2 PBJ, 7 gels and 7 water bottles, not the best diet. The field thinned out a bit and hit we hit 2 to go with about 1/2 the field in tack, rolling thru the feedzone for the 7 time and small group popped off the front and most just let it go because it did not look like a thread. Bad move, that was the one. With the teams with numbers looking like they were hurting, no one was in the mood for a chase. Last lap was pretty fast and we paced along waiting for the feedzone climbs and then the last 2K of steep climbing up Mt Wachusset. At the base of the feedzone climb, I rolled up to Jacob and told him to jump on my wheel, I would move up thru the field and he could follow. Jacob was sitting nicely in 11th on GC. A good spot, he was our man. I felt great and zipped us up to the front. I proceeded to ride at the front up thru the feedzone. Nothing was going anywhere, it looked like the bunch was about to duke it out on the steeps of the final climb. We hit the final climb and it was on, I was mid-pack and climbed well, I kept a nice steady pace and whatever I had left, I put down on the roads of the climb. I passed a few heads but had to settle for 43 - 3:57 back from the winners in the break and about 1:30 and change back from the winner of the bunch. Jacob was a bit a head of me at 30 place. We both had good rides and it could have done either way on the climb. This is a super hard race and to basically finish with the remains of the race is a good result even through the numbers don’t speak to it. So, I moved up the GC a bit and Jacob moved back a little. Straub got caught in the crash on lap 2 and had to chase for the remainder of the race. The other category racers did nice jobs as well - Sean finished a stellar 4th place in the CAT 4, with Chris DeCarlo WINNING the cat 4 mens! Nice job. The women had their hands full racing against the top women in the country and raced proud and strong. Nice job to everyone and thanks feedzone’ers. I had a nice dinner and 3/4 of beer before I passed out. Wachusset Beer is pretty good.