So nice, they named it twice

Walla Walla is done and over with, and so is stage racing for me this year. The Gentle Lovers descended on the little town of Walla Walla dressed in new kit and looked as good as ever. While the overall GC competition did not treat any of us very well, we all did get some good training in and had a lot of fun doing it.

From what I hear, it was not a nice weekend to be in the valley. The weather for us a good. It was cold, windy and snowed a little bit, but I would rather take some snow that the rain any day.

Stage 1 was a hilly 62 mile road race that turned out to be a death march with all the wind. I got popped fairly early, but met up with a few other and slogged out the rest of the first lap with them. At the start of the second lap, I was feeling a lot better and dropped the group of 8 that I was with. It was another 25 miles in the wind alone, but by the end of the race, I had put 2 minutes on the group I had been with. The last 10k of that stage were the hardest 10 k i have ever ridden. It was all into the headwind and I think I was pushing around 330 or so watts and going 12 mph on the flats.

Stage 2 was a short 6.6 mile TT on Saturday morning. It was a slow time out uphill into the wind and a quick trip back.

The third stage was a 95 mile road race on Saturday afternoon that consisted of one short loop and two long loops. I stayed with the pack until is shattered into pieces on long climb to start the last lap. I was on the back end of the shattering, so I rode the last lap alone again. It started snowing near the end of the race, but the sun was still out, so it just made things even more fun.

Sunday afternoon was the crit in downtown Walla Walla. My legs felt like crap in the morning when I went for a ride, so I was a bit unsure of how the race would go. But luckily things started out mellow and I got into my crit rhythm. The were two crashes in the race. I got stuck behind one of them and ended up on Veed's back and the top of my stem. But all was good and we took our free laps. Things got hot the last half of the race and I sprinted in for 7th place.