This was a lot of fun! It was easily the most difficult and selective road race I've ever done. 60 miles with ~4500 feet of climbing. And It was also fairly hot! Over 70 degrees.
The course starts out with 20 miles of rollers, then a descent into a ~30 mile flat section. The final 10 or so miles are two hard climbs separated by a short descent and flat section.
Right off the bat there were breakaways which I didn't chase, having no teammates. One guy actually managed to stay away the _entire race_ and won. As the race continued I helped shut down a few more attacks and then thing settled in the flat part. As the race neared the final climbs it got hellishly difficult - there were a lot of talented climbers in this race. The first climb I barely kept in contact with top 10 leaders but recovered and caught back up after the descent. By the last climb I had recovered enough to put a decent (top 10 on Strava) effort on the final climb which netted me 5th overall, of 4th place out of the main pack (since we had one guy off the front the whole race). Everybody looked like they felt terrible by the end. Very hard and selective race. Highly recommended!
And with that I'll take my three additional upgrade points.
