Tour de Toona - quick update

Field: 78 racers, Pro/1/2

Four stages: Wed: 3mi TT, Thur: 72.9mi Road Race, Sat: 90.9mi Road Race, Sun: 30mi crit

Wednesday - 3mi TT in Altoona, with 16 corners.

This was an all out sprint effort, a lot of fun; I was done before I realized it.

Thursday - 72.9mi Road Race with mountaintop finish

I woke up extra early on Wednesday for the drive up to PA. I wanted to see the two King of the Mountain spots which gave me the chance to see the second part of the race course. The course was never really flat, always rolling. When it was somewhat flat, then you had to deal with strong crosswind. There was never a time to relax on those 72.9mi. At the beginning of the race I was worried I would get dropped on the climbs. I realized really fast, I had to worry about the downhills.

The downhill sections were definitely not my favorite part of the race. I had to get used to trust two thin rubber tires to hold me up when descending at a ridiculous high speed. I checked my max speed after the race and it said 67mi/hr. I know, I know, this is probably not correct but I definitely felt like I was going that fast, especially when it was pouring rain! For about half an hour, we got rained on and partly pretty heavily.

We lost some riders on the first climb 35mi into the race. Then it was a matter of holding on all the descents. As all breakaway attempts were always caught I didn’t worry to stay in the front all the time. It all came down to the final climb: 4.3 mi and about 1700ft to the top.

I started off slower than most of my competition but was able to keep a consistent pace and passed about 10 people climbing up. That gave me motivation to push harder so I wouldn’t get passed again.

Today: Rest Day and we probably will need it because tomorrow we are facing 90mi and about 7000ft of climbing.