Longmont Crit

Suffering is how I would describe the day.
I haven't felt this tired from putting it all out in a race in a long time.
let's start from the morning
I woke up very early (for me) at 5:30am to prepare my coffee, eat some breakfast, and watch some Tour de France action.
I loaded up the dogs and left for the race a little after 6. Mind you, I almost never rise before 7am.
Zoomed on down to Longmont for the 22nd annual criterium.
It's one of my favorites courses and is shaped like an L with 6 corners.
First race up was the 35+ race. I've been showing some good form for no apparent reason and liked my chances at a good finish in this race. The absence of one of the major teams really made for a different race. With the exception of RMCEF their was no real team to control the race. I stayed up near the front for most of the race. I was feeling pretty good and with 5 laps to go, when the pace quickened, I was ready. Unfortunately, with 2 laps to go I was boxed out, fell pretty far back and had to fight my way back to the front just in time for the finish. I ended up 11th , my teammates did well, Larry finished in front of me at 7th, TR, DK, and Carter finished right behind me not far back. No one was involved in a crash, unlike last week which claimed the bikes and skin of DK and, my brother from another mother, Brad.
I felt pretty wasted after this race. Much more so than last weekends race. So my decision to race a second, Faster, race needed some serious thinking.
I rode around a bit and decided why not. It'll be good training.
The senior Pro 1-2 race was also a Colorado State Championships race. Hopefully I can last 30 minutes again like last week, I thought.
The race started out very smooth and seemingly not very fast. But it heated up a bit when the attacks to form a breakaway started reeling off. I found myself sitting comfortably somewhere in the middle to the back of the peloton. I quickly ran out of liquids because, after all, I was only going to be out here for a short while. I bummed a half empty bottle from an ex teammate and refueled. I had gone 30 minutes so far and was not feeling bad. 60 minutes in and I was still feeling great. At this point I was happy with my ride. If I dropped now it was no big deal. At 70 minutes, 15 minutes to go I was feeling tired and dehydrated. Every lap through the start finish I started to look for the 5 laps to go signal. The refs must have been sleeping at one point because the sign read 11 minutes to go and I thought, great only 6 more laps. But on the next lap it stilled showed 11 minutes. Damn, this is killing me. Finally 5 laps to go came and we were all together. This is when the pace turned hot and my legs started showing the wear of over 2 hours of racing. I finally popped off the back at 3 laps to go, did one more lap on my own and then called it a day. I rolled to my teammates tent and collapsed. I was spent. I had rode 67 miles including warmup at an average speed of over 25 mph for the day. After a few beers compliments of Left Hand Brewery's beer garden and a couple of enormous cinnamin rolls from a local cafe I headed back home. Mission completed, time to recover for next weeks races.