Valley of the Sun Road Race

Another beautiful day in Phoenix. Blue skies, warm sun, and little wind. 70ish Pro/1/2 women and 20ish category 3 women lined up for the start of the 59mile road race. The course was a triangle. There was a slight hill - big ringable, but enough to do damage. We did 3.5 laps. On lap 2 was a Queen of the Mountain time bonus (15, 10, and 5 seconds). There were quite a few full teams there. I stayed at the front for most of the race, but stayed out of the wind as much as possible. Attacks were thrown down, but nothing stuck until the last 1/2 lap. There were lots of crashes in the race, which had me prety freaked out. On the 2nd lap, I latched on to the GC leader's wheel near the front. I followed wheels and stayed top 5. Ended up taking the sprint for the 1st place time bonus on queen of the mountain. Coming in to the stage I was 14 seconds down from 1st place. The first place girl didn't get the top 3 bonuses, so I had already taken over the lead. After the QOM, it was time to be safe and race smart. I watched the girls I needed to be watching. An attack went down with 2 riders up the road. I wasn't sure who they were because I wasn't paying attention when they got off (go figure). Anyway, we caught one of the girls, but the other girl finished 5 seconds ahead of us. I followed wheels going up the hill for the last time and finally got on the right one. The sprint wasn't on top of the hill. We crested the hill and had about 300meters before the finish, which was slightly downhill. I jumped at about 220meters to go and held it for 2nd place. There were also time bonuses for top 3 finishing places. So I was able to get a total of 30 seconds in bonuses. The girl who won was back a ways in GC coming into the road race. I'm now leading the GC by 59 seconds. Tomorrow's criterium should be interesting. I'm glad it's race season again!! Good night :)
-A

P.S. Happy Valentines Day!!