GMSR

Green Mountain Stage Race was my most enjoyable road race of the season. I had to cut it short for a family emergency, thus Fitchburg (Longsjo) may have seen my best 2007 multi-day results.

Pre-race I drove the circuit course and TT. I probably could have told you where the cracks laid in the road and recited the list of visual cues I wanted to use.

Day1: prolog; consisted of a mass start turning into a suffer fest going up APP gap. Here I needed to warm up more. Pre-race I was feeling unprepared as usual. By the sprint point I chased and attempted to jump in position. I went from ~50th to ~10th. Should have had better position to even think of contesting the sprint.

Day2: Circuit; 2+3/4 laps. On the final KOM a crash happened just after the cresting of the KOM. There were 3 riders, one started to wabble and then went down hard. Hard enough to knock his powertap head unit off the bike. The bike and rider (luckily) separated before me. Bike went right and rider left. I was just preparing to go into mtb hoppin' mode. Not another frame my head ached! Disaster averted as I took the split up the middle. Ouch, hope he's ok. I was just about to be dropped from the main pack during that crest, I chased and got back into the peleton. I contested the sprint (and finish) each time. On the 2nd lap I probably had 4th position just out of the sprint points.

Day3: Road Race; ~60 miles with 2 or 3 big climbs. I had no idea what the course looked like and I think that was to my own advantage. I contested the sprint again, to get 4th or 5th maybe. I felt *GREAT* going up APP gap for the finish. I paced myself perfectly making me wonder if I should have pushed it further.

Day4: CRIT; skipped.

I'm starting to tick off a few of these routes; Northeast hill climbs

Comparing day1 and day3 performance mirroring sides of Appalachian Gap makes me think...
- Warmup more!
- More TT'ing necessary
- not knowing your enemy has an advantage
- ride the day before

day1
===
final 5k; 19:32, +1316 ft, av 175bpm (94%)
final 1k; 5:10, +333 ft, av 178 BPM (95%)
final 500m; 2:20, +171 ft, av 179bpm (96%)

day3
===
final 5k; 17:50, +1108 ft, av 170bpm (91%)
final 1k; 4:21, +337 ft, av 179 BPM (96%)
final 500m; 2:34, +222 ft, av 181bpm (97%)

The final 1k is nearly identical in elevation yet on day 3 I beat my time by nearly a minute!