Thursday – Stage 3:  Hollidaysburg Circuit Race – 96km

I felt remarkably good today.  I warmed up for 20mins on the trainer and felt great.  I decided today I wanted to get into a break.  The course was a 32km technical undulating loop, with a 1km climb to the QOM, situated in the last 5km of the loop.  The course meandered through narrow roads, over bridges, through cornfields and felt very European with its technical twists and sharp turns.

The attacks started thick and fast in the first lap.  I sat on Sandy Espeseth (Boise) and I went with every attack she made.  After the first lap, we were all back together but there had been a number of small attempts to get a break formed.  About 2km into the 2^nd lap, a well-represented group of 7 got a gap on the peloton and their respective teammates were suddenly all over the road blocking, and slowing the peloton down.  I was kicking myself for having missed this break.  I moved up to the front and watched in frustration as the break rolled away.  I stayed on the front for another km and then as we hit a particularly steep little hill, I climbed it hard and then kicked down the other side and put a gap into the field.  Once I saw the gap, I put my head down and never looked back.

The break had 2mins on me when I started chasing, and I was hoping they wouldn’t work too hard together, so I could bridge across to them.  I had a cross headwind, but managed to hold 40km/hr and soon started to reduce the time gap.  After 20km of chasing, I reached the QOM which was only 5km from the start/finish line, and was only 20sec behind the break.  I could see the caravan and knew I was almost there.  However, the break accelerated over the QOM and the start/finish line as the girls sprinted for QOM and sprint points and they lengthened their lead to 50 seconds.

I maintained a 1min deficient for another 30km and then my legs started to cramp as I hit the QOM for the final time.  I went as hard as I could over the final 5km and finished a little over 2mins behind the break in 8^th position, with Laura Van Gilder (Trek) winning the stage.  The peloton finished over 4mins behind me, which moved me up into 18^th position on GC.  I was disappointed that I wasn’t strong enough to bridge across to the break, but happy that I had moved into the top 20.

After my 60km time trial, my legs felt pretty trashed.  As soon as we got back to Blue Knob Resort where we are staying, I kicked my legs in the pool, and then suffered a painful massage to clean out the legs.  I ate as much as I could physically stuff in and then headed to bed.  I woke up at 4am for another meal and then managed to sleep for another 5 hours.