Stage 1 - Olomana Road Race
I woke up at 430am on Saturday morning to drive over to the windward side of O'ahu for the 630am race start. Too early!! After a can of Red Bull and a banana, I was ready to rock! The "A" race (Cat 1-4) was contested over 15 laps of Olomana. Climbing for 1/2 a lap, with a long gradual descent on the highway for the other 1/2. Mentally, I just broke it down into 3 intervals per lap with a long recovery on the highway between them, for a total for 45 intervals. The race had a few attacks, but nothing that would stick. I found myself up the road with pro triathlete Tim Marr, later joined by Chad Seymour, but that move was reeled in by the chasing peloton. The rest of the race was fairly mellow with a few attacks that didn't get far. I lost count of laps but going through the feed zone towards the end of the race, I heard the final lap bell ring! Time to sort this race out! At the end of the lap I put in an attack up the final climb, only to see people still feeding. S**t, not done yet, 2 more laps to go! I think the lap was for the end of the women's race. By this point I thought that my plan of attack was known and it wouldn't work again at the finish, but I went with the same move, attacking at a little over 1200w in the 53 ring at the base of the final climb to take the win.

After I got home from Olomana I got some news that my 85yr old grandpa (on my dad's side) was in hospital, and not in good shape... The prognosis was to expect the worst on Sunday.

Stage 2 - Tantalus TT (hillclimb)
I woke up at 430am, checked my emails, and received the news... My grandpa passed away on Sunday morning. I went back to sleep for another hour, the rolled over to Tantalus. I got there a bit late but managed to get in about 25 mins of warmup. I covered the first 5mins of the climb at 385w and felt pretty good, then at 7mins realized I still had a full bottle of water with me! I launched that and kept through down any watts that I could find. The conditions didn't feel that fast with more wind the usual, and I crossed the line in 19min 30sec. Enough to take the win by 4sec ahead of John Flannagan (Didn't race Olomana), and about 40sec ahead of Ray Brust. Probably one of my slowest race times up Tantalus ever, but I'm fairly happy with it considering my recent lack of training on hills.

Stage 3 - Kakaako Criterium (50mins)
Inconsistent results from other riders in the first two stages meant that I had a solid GC lead going into the final stage, which is always nice. I could relax a bit more than in previous years where I only had a couple points advantage. After a couple laps I had a go and went off the front for a bit, but was reeled in. I got a way again with Alika Chee, but he seemed happy to just sit on my wheel. Not being in the mood to offer any free rides, I just sat up and went back to the peloton. A little work there could have resulted in a nice win for someone. C'est la vie. A $20 prime was thrown out, so I chased that and took it without much of a fight. Another 15-20mins later with 15mins to go, there was another $20 prime. Carl Brooks put in an attack, followed by Kevin Kawainui, then myself. Going into turn three Kevin slid out in front of me, probably due to going into the turn a little too hot. I followed suit and ate asphalt too. Pain! Landing on smooth black asphalt at 2:45pm with the mercury cruising at 90F = HOT ROAD. As soon as I put my hands on the road to push myself up all I could feel was my skin being seared... Not fun at all. I got up, rolled around towards the start / finish area along with my team mate Casey Tucker who was awesome and stayed back to make sure I was alright. I took a free lap then hopped back in when the bunch came around again. A few laps after that, Carl put in another attack. I followed him, then continued on solo to take a much wanted win. Nice to get 3 wins out of 3 races, despite crashing out. Thanks to Terrish Bilbrey for scrubbing my wounds clean!

Feb 15, 1924 - Aug 2, 2009... Grandpa, this win is for you!