Valley of the Sun Stage Race

This past weekend, my cycling team took a trip to Phoenix, Arizona for the Valley of the Sun 3 Day Stage Race. The race consisted of an individual time trial, a road race, and a criterium. The first day's time trial went better than I expected and 2 other teammates in my age group. My other teammate did great by winning the stage by 3 seconds ahead of a 2 time national time trial and road race champion. I finished 1 minute and 10 seconds back from first place and finished 4th place that day. The next day was the road race. 75 % of the race was extremely easy. I sat in the group the whole time conserving my energy for the last 2 miles. When we hit 3km to go, 2 of my teammates went to the front and spat out short little pulls before the finishing climb. We were a quarter of the way up the climb, and I noticed it was me, my teammate who was in first place going into that stage, and the national champion from Colorado. I got to the front and pulled all the way up at about 22- 23 mph. With 1km to go, I dropped the national champion. I also started to drop my teammate with 500 meters to go. he told me not to wait and keep going for the win. I soloed on for the win that day with a 10 second time bonus at the end for the winner. I finished 5 seconds ahead of my teammate, 15 seconds ahead of the national champion, and 1 minute ahead of the person in 3rd place; who was from El Paso, Texas. At the end of the day, I got kisses from the podium girls and I got bumped from 4th place to 3rd place and into a podium position. The next day was originally supposed to be a 30 minute criterium, but the race was delayed an hour and a half due to the lack of race organizers for not getting the safety hay bails ready for the light poles. Our race then turned into a 20 minute race. Right from the gun, the national champion attacked to try and get a breakaway started to gain time. But me and my teammate caught him to have our own 3 man breakaway. We used the national champion to do all the work and loose his energy. On the last lap, I attacked to make the national champion chase me to so he can lose his energy. Halfway through the lap, my teammate attacked and I went along with him. We dropped the national champion and soloed off for a 1- 2 team win. He got first and I got second finishing right on his wheel and not giving him a challenge for the win. I basically let him have the win because it was the classy thing to do. This is what happened during my time in Arizona.