Day 5: Evanston, IL

We were all fired up for this race. Its a fun course. Flat and fast with good turns (for us anyway, others, not so much). Patrick took 2nd here last year. My legs felt great. I could tell from the beginning I had a good ride in me. The race was very frustrating though, because the pace would just keep sitting up and the pack would swell as wide as the road and you would get passed by 20 riders on one side or the other. You basically had to get in the top 3 and power up with every surge if you wanted to stay near the front. Somebody crashed midway through and they temporarily stopped the race. There have been a lot of crashes this year. I was at the front before the final turn of the last lap and the field was all together. Of course, I got swarmed and lost 20 spots. I went around the bend, heard a crash behind me of course (standard protocol in a cat 3 race). I came out of the turn way down on position, so I just started my sprint from the beginning of the straightaway. I'm guessing about 600 meters. I wound it up pretty good and passed a lot of riders. Just as I was coming to the line, there was another crash. A rider hit the deck close to my line and bike was flying through the air right at me. I didn't know if I was going to make it or not. I kept the speed oin though and was able to thread the needle, just barely, for 6th. Eric was just behing and bunny hopped a bike at the line for 12th. Chaos.