3rd in Tour of El Paso

My first time to El Paso was pretty fun. I got some great training in and some good racing. The form is coming on pretty good now and I should be riding very well by Gila, which is one of my bigger goals for the season. The drive down there is long but wasn't to bad because we decided to get there a day before the race so we wouldn't be to tired from all of the driving. Thanks to Jaime for letting us crash at his place.
Saturdays time trial didn't go very well for me. I am coming to realize that I just suck at individual time trialing. I either go out to hard and completely detonate before the end or start to slow and never actually get going. I ended up 10th overall, lost about a minute and a half to Anthony Colby. Anthony ended up getting second place and Ryan Blickem our other teammate was 4th. Ryan is just getting over the flu, so 4th place is on a bad day because he can time trial with the best of them.
Later that day we raced in the crit which turned out to be a pretty good course, even with a 180 turn in there. Our plan was to attack until we had two of us in the break. Ryan hit it pretty hard and after they chase him down I attacked and got a little gap. I thought there was no way it was going anywhere but I soon found myself with Patrick Walsh (CCB), Todd Bauer (NMVS), some old dude who was a hammer named Henry, and my teammate Anthony. We rode away from the group. With 2 laps to go it was time to try to soften the guys up, I attacked, then Anthony attacked, each time we were instantly covered. We made he mistake of not attacking enough and came into the sprint with 5 guys still. I decided to cover Todd Bauer again because he is a pretty good sprinter. Todd had me in the gutter in the sprint and was weaving all over the place, by the time I got around him Patrick Walsh had too big of a gap and I couldn't come around him. I ended up 2nd and Anthony was 5th. It was an exciting finish though and I was stoked to be in the mix.
After two events Anthony was sitting in first place in the overall and I was in second. Ryan was sitting in 5th. We were in a good position to take the overall as we raced in the road race. Ryan pretty much controlled the group all by himself the entire day. The first lap we hit the bottom of Trans Mountain, a 4.5 mile climb, we wanted to whittle the group down for the second lap. I turned the screws a little on the field and then Anthony turned them even more over the top. We had the group down to about eight guys. On the descent though the group jumped in behind the cars and drafted right back up, CHEATERS! I was irritating. So we wasted all that energy. The next time up the climb, the plan was to try to get two of us away in the group over the top. I went a little to hard and popped everyone but four guys. Then they pulled through super hard and that was all she wrote for me, I popped! Anthony made it into the lead group but was outnumbered two to one by the CCB guys. He ended up 2nd in the Road Race and I ended up 5th. I wish I could have hung on a little longer on the climb and made it into that move. Anthony took the overall and I ended up finishing in 3rd place.
Back in D-Town now it is awesome! I love this place, El Paso was nice and warm but there is just nothing there and it is so hot that the terrain is like a lunar landscape. I am counting the days until school gets out. The Squawker Classic collegiate race is this weekend and I am going to race. The collegiate race is longer and I want to race longer so I will be racing with the collegiate guys. There isn't much racing going on in the next couple of weeks. Good thing because it is crunch time in school.