Longbranch

I've been saying all year that this is the good course for me...
The climbs are step but not long…I believe I have the power to get over these shorter climbs with the best.
A false flat after the climb to get separation, and finally a slight uphill sprint. Sunday’s field was considerably smaller then Saturday, maybe it was the rain that scared people of. All morning the rain was pouring down and it didn’t look good for us. 10 min before it was still raining, it wasn’t until 5min in, heading up the long gentle climb that we noticed blue skies ahead…and the rest of the race was all in sunshine…how did we get so lucky.
Early on lap two a break went up the road, not all that dangerous… but as Kenny attacked, to bridge followed my Emde I knew I had to go. If those two got up there, there would be nobody back here to chase… Kenny was going hard in full TT mode, when Emde and I finally managed to latch on a few hundred feet later we had a big gap back to the pack. As we started up the hill Kenny went hard but Emde and I stayed on. As we climbed the rest at a reasonable tempo, I was surprised at the crest when suddenly the bunch of riders countered our move. I managed to accelerate and hang on, Emde went back to the back group though. We were now seven riders. As we neared the top of the false flat Kenny attacks from the back and eventually bridges up to the front break. BRI and First rate now had riders in the break, and the ones in our group made it clear that they were passenger from here on… Axley had two riders (three when Emde caught back on ½ lap later) ,Tony from Broadmark and I were the only ones chasing.
During the following few laps we eventually caught and dropped most of the breakaway except Kenny who kept going. Axley did a good job chasing, making sure nothing else went of the front..
It came down to a 7 person sprint for 2nd… I did ok and ended up 3ed overall. I’ve noticed a slight drop in sprint speed this year… that is something I will have to work on…
But I was very happy, walking away with a medal, one better the last year, for the second day in a row.
I’ve now done this race the last three years, 5th the first, then 4th last year and 3ed this year… if this continues. …
This would have been a great weekend if it wasn’t for the fact that I lost my SRM head unit. This is a rather expensive piece of equipment. I took it of my bike for the drive home(so I wouldn’t loose it)…yeah that worked great…oh well… my theory at this point is that I put it on the roof of the car as I was lifting the bike up on the rack…and left it there.

Next weekend is the third “W” of the year, and it’s the hardest one. This year we have had stage races in Walla Walla, Winthrop and now Wenatchee. Wenatchee is the state stage race championship…a very important race, but sadly way too hard for me, climbs that last 30min….yeah not my cup of tea against good climbers… but I’ll sure do my best