I came in first last year at the Capitol Reef Classic racing in Cat. 5 so I came into the race with certain hopes and expectations. At first I was excited to see that I had beat my prior time trial time by a minute. It turns out conditions were better this year and nearly everyone did better than in 2010. I ended up getting 13th in the time trial, a stage that I had won last year. The circuit race consisted of two laps. On the second lap I put in what I thought was a brutal attack on the uphill but everyone was able to follow. I ended up finishing just a few seconds behind the winner. The road race was much more difficult. Not only was it 30 miles longer but it had several thousand feet of climbing. The pack went at a leisurely pace and I decided to pull as we arrived in Bicknell. I really wasn't putting forth much effort but still I ended up just kind of dribbling off the front. One of the other riders asked if I wanted to work with him to try and stay away. That seemed like a disaster so I politely declined but then two other riders cut across the gap that I had inadvertently created. I decided that maybe it was worth a go. I was down about a minute and a half from the overall lead and thought that maybe this was my chance to turn things around. We worked well together and created a gap of 5 minutes at one point. The motor official had let us know that there was some infighting in the pack. Some people had chosen to attack at the first feed zone at during a nature break. We climbed past fish lake and continued back on the highway when I finally ran out of gas with about 20 miles to go. Someone from our group won the stage which made me kind of happy. I ended up in 8th overall which I didn't feel too bad about.
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