Hardest I've gone...

Not referring to what the girls in college used to tell me. Sorry Paul M-stole that one from you.
Today was stage one of the Tour de Namur. 150K with some climbs but nothing too long-2-3K maximum.
I felt good this entire week and had good expectations going into this race. Before the race, I stopped by the U.S. National team bus and was stoked to see Connor O'Leary at the start line. I met Connor a while back at one of the USA cycling camps in Arizona a couple of years ago. Besides being a beast on the bike, he is also one of the nicest people you will meet. Last year he was diagnosed with testicular cancer so it's awesome to see him recovered and tearing it up in Europe.

Laurent and Jonathan before the race. I think Laurent got in the top 20-30 today. Not sure about Jonathan. 

Before the race. Obviously. 

The car is ready to go!

The race was fast and basically, in my tired and post-race state, I'm going to make it brief. I went through my food in my jersey pocket too quickly and with about 45K to go, ran out of food. BONK. I hit the wall, big time. I made it over all of the climbs, but just got destroyed afterward. . It wasn't even hard when I hit the wall. I floated back to the cars until I came upon my car. Patrice gave me some food but still I think it was too late. I forced as much food down as I could but at that point, it was just about staying with the cars. After about 10 minutes, I got popped out of the cars;  I was by myself for a while until a chase group caught me and still, it was super hard. I don't think I've ever pushed myself as deep into the pain cave as during some of the accelerations up some of the rollers; cramping in my ankles? What? I remember one distinct moment when it actually started to get dark around me and I couldn't feel the lower half of my body. WOO bike racing!

I made it with the my group to the end, and luckily I had a few Americans and Matias for company in my group to exchange some dialogue in English. We finished around 4 minutes back. I paid, however, for my efforts to try to consume as much food as possible in the last 30K. Yeah, some of it came back up when I got back home.

Anyways, tomorrow-more food! More food, more food and more food. Tomorrow is another day.