Tour of the Catskills Race Report
Gang,
You can read my race report for the Tour of the Catskills here.
@Dave Vannette: I wish I had known you were racing. I had plenty of time to hook up. You might have been that final nudge to get me out racing on Sunday. 
BTW, were are you located? I am trying to work up a list of riders that I can ride with to help perfect my group riding skills.
Thanks everyone for you support! EN is just an amazing group of people. Best find!
Pete
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Hey Pete,
Sorry to hear that your race didn't go as planned. I remember being in a very similar place before my first triathlons and road races, the nerves get going and it's incredibly hard to get back in control. Now that you have your first road race behind you I'm sure that future races won't seem nearly as daunting. Sunday's stage wasn't all that bad, basically most fields just took it pretty easy until Devils Kitchen and then everything went to hell in a hand-basket from there. It was like a bomb going off in the field. But once you crested the climb it was almost all downhill to the finish and the goal was just to limit the losses to the climbers. So basically it was a solid 20 minutes of suffering and then the stage was done. Not so bad, though those 20 minutes were interminable.
Being from Michigan, climbing is new to me so I wrote up a blog post about my experience spending the summer around mountains and it includes a bit of my experience at the Tour of the Catskills: http://lifeinthemiddleofthepack.blogspot.com/ (sorry for the lack of data, this was more of an overview report than a specific race/ride report).
-Dave
Pete,
Am I correct in assuming your first race as a Cat 5 was a stage race? If so, that's a big leap, especially it being your first group ride.
I'd say you did pretty well considering what happened to your mom. I get really nervous before all my bike races. I did a crit last night in my home town and was nervous all day long. The one thing I've learned is how to deal with it and just not let it rent too much space in my head.
Congrats on throwing your hat in the ring and giving it a shot. I hope you find another cat 5 road race before the summer's out.
Dave
Way to jump in there. Bike racing is a different kind of hurt/ fun. Hope you keep getting those starts in.
Chris
Trying to organize a ride to the Long Valley Brewery either the end of August or during September. Or make it a monthly thing. Just need the wives to pick us all up. Will let you know when it gets put on the schedule. Some nice climbs out that way, sorry hills, I don't think some would classify them as climbs.
good job on the first race Pete. Sometimes life can catch up with us all.
P
As a followup, I learned that a hiker was seriously hurt while hiking Devil's Kitchen on the same day as the Tour's final stage. I believe the incident happened about the same time the riders should have been climbing the hill. This should have made things interesting.
BTW, thanks to everyone for the comments and encouragement. This has definitely peaked my interest in the cycling world. I will most definitely be adding more of these to my schedule. Now I just need to get out there and WORK!