Nocatee Stage Race

This past weekend was the Nocatee Stage Race in Ponte Vedra, FL. It consisted of a 60mile road race, 5 mile tt, an 70 minute crit. The road race was supposed to be 10x6 mile laps on a flat course. It rained hard from start to finish. About 2 miles into the race Shawn Gravois and Drew Miller got off the front. The group didn't really seem to care and we did not start to go fast for about 2 laps. I planned on sitting in early and waiting late for any moves. I did not go with this early move because I figured it would be brought back. They built a gap of 1.5 minutes and it seemed to stay there for a long time. When we came through with 6 to go they told us it was 4 to go. I started to panick a little then because with 1.5 minutes at four laps to go it seemed like Shawn and Drew had a good chance to stay away to the finish. For the last 2 laps we tried very hard to bring back Shawn and Drew. They managed to stay away by about 15 seconds to the finish. They rode very well together and congratulations to them for staying off the front. I came in 7th in the group for ninth place.

The next event was the tt. I felt ok for the tt because I did not do too much work in the road race. I got in a good long warm up and got to the start about 5 minutes before my start time. I thought I would do ok in this tt but thought it favored Grant Potter. I took off for the first mile pretty conservatively and felt decent. By the second mile I was rolling good and pushed hard. I felt really great and with a kilometer to go felt pretty tired. I pushed on to the line and got a time of 10:11. I beat Grant Potter by 2 seconds. I was very happy with this win because this is my first pro 1,2 time trial win. I was also first in the overall after the tt.

The crit was about a 1 mile course that was straight then there were 2 90 degree right turns, a left, a long straight, 2 more rights, then a right to the finish. It was also pretty windy for our race. The race was 70 minutes plus 2 laps. I wanted to attack a lot in the wind and force a break to happen. After about 10 minutes of racing it was pretty tough and a split of about 15 riders formed. Every time the race got hard I would attack. I felt good and was countering myself. By 30 minutes into the race it was clear that no one was going to let me go off the front, so I stopped attacking and waited for the end. A few times Shane Braley went off the front and another rider went off for a few laps. I wanted to attack into the third to last turn and hold it from there to the line. Shane attacked with 2 laps to go and no one wanted to chase him. He stayed away for the wind. I tried to attack where I wanted to but got slowed down in traffic and 5 riders past me. I kept this position to the line and held on for the overall win by .1 seconds over Grant Potter. I am pretty pleased with this weekend because it was my first tt win and first GC win. In a week and a half I race again in Brookesville.