Tour of the Gila Stage 5

We survived! Today was the final stage of the 2009 Tour of the Gila. It was a tough one. Today's route was the 2nd day's race course backwards. It was 115.5km stage. Here's the profile:16km into the race was the first bonus sprint. We had made a plan that we would start countering at this point. So the sprint came, and we attacked. I was barely holding on during these attacks because my legs were not warmed up, and well...of course they were extremely tired! Finally I decided I would counter attack. Once Toni was caught, off I went up the right hand shoulder. I didn't give it my all, but gave it enough to break away from the group. Lucky for me, 3 other girls joined me. Rebecca Much of Webcor, Nicole Evans of ValueAct, and Rachel Heal of Colavita were in the group. We were able to get away around 30km into the race. With all the major teams represented in the break, no one was working. This left a few of the G.C. riders without teammates a little stressed. Our break worked well together. It was fun being able to fly through the country side in rotation. I really enjoyed it, even the pain :). Our break had 6minutes on the field at one point. When we hit the final climb, Rebecca put the hurt on. I started to drop off and couldn't hold their pace. Eventually Kristin Armstrong flew around me. Around 30 seconds later a group of 8 or so riders caught me. I latched on and dug deep knowing that I had to stay with them. Eventually my two teammates Carla and Anne caught up with our group. We all stayed their until the end. Kristin A. was way up the road, but one of the girls from my break (Nicole Evans) was still a few seconds up the road. So Anne and I went to the front and put down some major pulls. Carla sat in the group safely. With a little over 1km to go, the group surged and I was off the back. Anne and I rolled in with Rebecca Much and a Colavita girl. Carla sprinted for 5th place. I finished 15th, Anne 16th. It was a fun, hard race. My legs definitely surprised me by todays race. Needless to say, I'm looking forward to an easy week on the bike :).

As a team, we finished 4th overall. Anne took 8th in the G.C., Carla was 11th, I was 20th, Toni was 24th, Hillary was 38th, and Kate was 60th. All of us finished! With around 80 original starters, this was an awesome showing for the team. I'm looking forward to racing with these gals again soon! Thanks for stopping in!
-A