Today's was Stage 5 - The Cascade Lakes Road Race. An 84-mile course starting of with a long climb, a long fast descent, a bunch of rolling terrain, a small climb, then a long climb to the finish.

I woke up with some pain in my left knee, but decided to race anyway. I made it about half way up the first climb before going out the back of the peloton. Quite a few people using cars (drafting / holding) to try and get back into the race, but I did my best to resist the temptation. I ended up with a rider from Rio Grande and we worked together for ages trying to catch back on / limit out time loss, eventually hooking up with a couple guys from Hagens Berman and one rider from Bobs-Bicycles. We worked together pretty good, but the Rio Grande rider hit my rear wheel and crashed pretty damn hard. From what I hear, he maybe had a broken collarbone and maybe some cracked ribs. We went back to make sure he was alright, then he got taken away in a vehicle by a family that had someone in the race. I spent the rest of the stage working with 3 guys doing a steady rotation then went alone up the long final climb to try and make the time cut - but I missed it the Time Cut was 3:47:05 @ 29:37 behind the winner and I crossed the line with 3:51:56 @ 34:28. I've got some fairly bad pain in my left knee and ankle so it's probably a blessing in disguise that I'm out of the race and not doing the final stage.

While I'm a bit disappointed in some of my race results, I have to keep things in perspective. I work a full time job, trying to study for architect's license exams, the level of competition here has probably been the highest out of all 4 times I've raced the Cascade Cycling Classic, and there was a full field of 150 riders. It's been an awesome experience!

Out of one negative come a few positives. 1) I get to go flying over Bend in the afternoon 2) I'll have some time to study for one of my Architect license exams.