So there was a race yesterday

Somewhere mixed in the unsettling bit about the car and the joy and fun with my oldest, there was a race.

Oh crap - bacon wrapped around a hot dog. Mexican Hot Dog? Holy crap those look good.

So I parked up top - grabbed an open spot by superstars Mike and Cathy and my nemisis supreme from last year Chris White. Set up the tent. Pulled out the bikes, and K wanted her bike together so she could ride down the around by the playground and such. We headed down, I got my number, bought a couple raffle tickets for the first drawing in the Harry Lam Benefit, put K's name on them. And then headed up to get dressed. Got on the course and finished a lap and a half or so. It was going to be an interesting course. A good handful of elements that just owned me. The antithesis of Plymouth south, mentally mostly. Instead of feeling like i owned the course, it was the opposite.

But at least I knew what I was getting into when we lined up eventually.

Before that I tried to keep my normal pre-race routine. It was going pretty well but man I was just not feeling it. I was excited to race but the week off, the car, the high from last weekend really combined to undermine a bit of the steely focus needed.

Warm up was just sitting on the trainer. Team mates hanging out and chatting while I tried to get a few openers in but that didn't work so well, well it worked in that I got plenty warm, but didn't juice my focus a lot.

Got off the trainer and headed down and met up with K just as they were announcing the first round of Raffle winners. Her name was called. And she came down from the upper level of the building carring a brand new Specialized helmet, a medium and it fit her perfectly. She's all done with her old one now. The new one is the same color as mine and she pretty much wore it all the way home in the car and around the house. She was ecstatic. I lined up for the race, mass confusion about if the 45s and 35s would start together or separately. They couldn't do a 30s start because we were making it around the course in less time than that, so they thought - sure lets do a 2 minute gap. Okay. I was front row between superstar Mike and someone else. It was shoulder to shoulder bar to bar, Elbows were out defensively across the row. It narrowed down pretty damn quick going around the track.

I settled in feeling pretty good, up top not to far back and the pace felt fast but manageable. There were a handful of fast starters that I didn't recognize who were letting big gaps open up. I did my best to get around them and charged around chasing the conga line of leaders. That run up with the barriers at the bottom was long and not steep. I would have much rather ridden that and had them put barriers below the other section that was steeper and shorter. It would have been much more to my strengths. But coming down from the top section we hit the first left after the parking lot, then a hairpin right then a hairpin left and my front wheel hit a rock and i was on the ground in a split second. Hit my head pretty damn hard on something solid too. Rattled me a bit but I managed to get back up and back in line after only having 4 people pass me. I could see G-ride up there. We all drilled it and cleaned the rideable short steep hill and kept motoring. Around the tennis courts and through into the "forest" where the grooves were getting deep. I ate those grooves up. No problem and generally hit them faster and gained ground on those ahead of me going through that section. G-Ride had eaten it there though. He wasn't looking happy but I jumped and tried to give him a draft/tow/recovery back up. Then he wasn't there anymore. Weird. At some point Wade Summers came through me and I had the brilliant idea to just stick on his wheel. I followed those yellow spokes for a lap and a half. He gunned it around the track and and I hung on that wheel, and stayed there, he'd gain some ground and I'd reel him back. Then the next time around the track he attacked and gapped me and I couldn't quite respond. But I kept it steady and started pulling him back a bit. Then we hit the pinwheel and he rode it faster than I did. Brought him back w/in striking distance after the run up but there was no contact to be made again. But i kept working it.

It was impossible to see the lap cards - all the people the lack of a defined official location and just the awfulness of the results killed the whole "feeling," that sucked. It is a good enough race that they need something more than what they had. sure - that's acceptable for your first race if you don't care so much about that, but it is unacceptable for the status the Shedd Park race has taken on IMHO.

So with no clear "how many to go" ever it was difficult to judge effort and pacing. A few guys who i'd passed early made their way back towards me, Wade finally vanished from visual contact and I kind of went into ah shit mode. I wasn't attacking the few straight sections with as much power as I could have. And I was getting worse and worse riding the pinwheel and the downhill 180s. Wheels were coming off.

Coming into what I had THOUGHT was the final lap (saw a 1 to go card but didn't get a bell) I was holding off a hard charging rider. And he slowly gained ground on me, but I dug deep to keep him off my wheel. But then coming into the tennis courts before the turn into the forest, I see superstar Mike still racing. What? Huh? And that threw me for a loop. Maybe we have one more to go? Okay. It sucked basically. That little seed of doubt totally submarined my focus once and for all. The guy came around me on the track and I let him ride me off the wheel. And he came through and we were both like "are we finished" on official standing down the ways about said "all finished" or something. It was strange.

Then 2 hours later results are posted with just numbers. No one remembers their number. Well I remember G-ride's he was 303, C-burke's was 404. Mine? No clue. 24th is what it says on the sheet. No times, just placing and numbers. Frustrating.

But I headed back up, cleaned up and dropped back down with K to check in with Yash and the HUP crew and see everyone (and to get my wheels out of the pit). I was dead. Legs body - completely toast. I suffered out there and it was great racing I just wish a few things had gone just a little differently. Granted it was a stacked field. Matt_S showed up and Myette came out or retirement Mark G rode with the 35s instead of the 45s and super coach Kurt P crushed it with Pete Smith riding his wheel. It was pretty damn stacked. Granted the Corner Cycle mafia of Bold Hines decided to race with Frank and Mark and Shawn, Myerson and Spinmo in the 2pm race. So it could have been even more stacked. As it was only a few of the 45+ guys caught me so that was a positive thing. Solobreak and Cronoman never caught me so that's always good. On an off day i can easily lose more than 2 minutes to those guys.

And i consider yesterday to be an off race. I'm always better on day two but today I'm sitting around writing up a race report instead of racing.

Heading back to the car with K's bike and the pit wheels I was winded half way up. I had to stop and collect myself and was gassed just getting back up there. Checked out the car with G-ride, chatted a bit, ate some food. And K and I headed back down to check on the second raffle of the day. We stuck a few more tickets in there and she won some Mad Alchemy mellow cold weather embro and chamois cream and a killer pair of those Zancanato socks. And J. English - I've got something for you for Sterling. K wanted to try the socks on when we were driving home. She loooooved them. And literally hasn't taken them off since. They are a bit small for my flippers. She had so much fun. She was stuffed full of hupcakes. The Bacon ones were her favorites by a landslide.

A great day with my daughter, hanging out with some of my great friends and team mates, and the weather was pretty damn nice too.

This week my coach has me starting phase 5. Yikes. Three doubles left till the season is over.

see yall out there
heddwch
G