Hors category stage race

I just finished my first Hors category stage race. An Hors category stage race for those who don’t know is one step down from the three grand tours (Tour de France, Giro d’Italia and the Vuelta a Espagna) of which all are 3 week stage races. Our race was 984 kilometer long and had 8,400 meters (is that even possible?) of climbing OUCH! One stage had an amazing 3,380 meters of climbing. During that stage we had one-Second category climb, two-First category climbs and one Category Especial (hardest category as describe by Spanish descriptions). Now it is time to take a deep breath and get ready to drive back to Belgium to unload the trucks and reload them (both are going) to the tour.