After having a win on Saturday, the start of the race was a lot less stressful than usual. The start of the race was a little bit more timid than normal mostly because they were running the race counter clockwise, which is reverse than normal and none of the racers have raced in this direction before. With this reverse in the direction we would be climbing all the hills at once and have a long gradual down hill towards the finish for 14 laps. As the race progressed on the first couple of laps I was able to ride near the front on the uphill sections and slowly drift through the downhills getting dragged around in the draft of the pack, trying to familiarize my self with this long descent.
After a few laps of chilling in the pack and chasing down a few large groups that got off the front, a group of 7 made it up the road. I was feeling a bit tired from chasing earlier moves and I couldn't jump across on the fast down hill when they made their move. All the largest teams had a guy up the road and I instantly knew that the podium was riding away from me and I had to try to get across. Once the break was established I waited near the front every lap hoping that someone would make a move to get across but nothing was going. However riders from the break away up the road started getting dropped changing the tactics of the largest teams from block, to chase. But as the race continued the break continued to stay away despite the chase efforts being done by a few of intact teams left in the race.
On the final two laps I got to the front on the uphill sections to try to get some sort of chase going one last time but no chase was ever formed. After two laps of digging deep to get away the pack, I was swallow up on the downhill and I coasted into the finishing sprint mid pack. the winner of the race Was Todd Farrell (williamscycling.com) who stayed away in the break for almost the entirety of the race
