Wicked Fast & Wicked Hard

I missed the 3/4/5 registration by about 5 minutes. The race officials capped the field at 75 leaving me no other choice but to race the Pro 1/2/3 category. Racing with the pros was part of my original plan but I wanted to use the 3/4/5 as a warm-up. With a huge race in California next week our race was stacked with a number of pro guys from various teams. I counted 7 Toyota United, 3 Team Type 1, 2 Bissell, 1 Healthnet, 1 Slipstream, 1 Jelly Bean and a whole lot of fast Cat. 1 guys from Boulder. I knew this race was going to be wicked fast from the beginning and I was absolutely right! To be honest I don't remember much of the first few laps besides trying to hold some dude's wheel and not get dropped. A couple of my teammates who were watching said it was crazy fast. Eventually 6 guys get off the front and of course they are all pro guys with 4 of them being Toyota United pro guys. They weren't too far off the front and we could see them the whole time BUT they were flying and working well together so it was tough to close the gap. I had no teammates in this race and my only goals were to try to make the break and be aggressive. Well I pretty much tossed the first goal out the window once I saw the field stacked with pros. This race was hard and I did it last year doing nothing but suffering and sitting in the whole time. I knew that wouldn't be a problem this year so I decided to take a few aggressive moves and be someone in this crit. I ended up moving up 3 different times and launching attacks or pulling the field to try to close the gap. These were serious efforts that I very well could say were my hardest efforts ever? It felt awesome to pull the pack and make that effort with 70+ guys in tow. My 3rd attack was everything I had left in me and ended up getting blown off the back and out of contention. I was perfectly happy with that because those efforts I know will benefit me come this weekend and all of April. Next weekend: Koppenberg!!!!