State Championship Road Race

10 things to do when its 105 degrees outside:
1. Go down to Panoche to race the Northern California State Championships. This race is one of the more important ones on the calendar, because you get to wear the jersey for the next 12 months and race fees are almost non-existent for the state champ.
2. Ride around with teammates Daniel and Joel before the race to come up with a strategy for the brutal 4500 ft of climbing 67 mile course.
3. Eat lots of food and drink lots of Cytomax to avoid bonking, dehydration and cramping. Also, grab three bottles at every feed zone to pour over your head.
4. Rest, recover and block for teammate Joel who is up the road a third of the way into the race. This move helped me get a lot of rest, and I think this is why I felt so good on the climbs later in the race. Thanks Joel!
5. Ride hard on the hill right before the half way mark. I got a gap several times, but no one really responded; everyone paced their way back to me and it was too far to go alone.
6. Ride a hard tempo up the other side of the same hill trading pulls with Nate (swift), to reduce the field size to six. This lead group which included Andreas (Davis), Cody (Davis), Nate (Swift), Adam (Tieni Duro), Sam (ride for a reason) and myself then rotated on the flats for about 5 minutes to make sure no one else would catch us.
7. Attack on every hill. The original plan was for me to get away on one of the hills later in the race. However, on the way back the headwind had really picked up and I realized there was no way I could stay off the front alone. I felt the strongest on all the climbs in the second half of the race and attacked continuously to try to get away with one other rider. I was a bit stupid; I became too predictable, and didn’t really go all out on some of my attacks.
8. Rest for a field Sprint. Once the climbs were over, I rotated a bit with the group I was in and followed moves from Nate and Sam who both wanted to get away. I was a bit nervous because Andreas, who I think is a really good sprinter, was marking my wheel the entire way.
9. With one kilometer to go stay patient as Adam Hodes puts in a solid surprise attack from the back. Andreas reacted and I used this opportunity to get on his wheel.
10. Accelerate off Andreas’ wheel with 150m to go to get the win!