The more USCF races I do the more I realize how slow I am! I stuck myself right in the front of the race for the first couple laps, pulling people around and basically making myself suffer for no reason. I quickly fell to the back of the pack and attempted to recover… for some reason my chest was really really hurting for about 5 laps. It was painful enough for me to seriously consider pulling out, but the image of my girlfriend , bloodied from a crash, climbing back on the bike and still taking 2nd inspired me to dig a little deeper (HTFU).
I sat around at the back of the pack for most of the race and only started moving up with about 5 laps to go. With about 3 laps to go I found myself right at the front of the pack and decided to just go for it. I attacked with everything I had (full commitment!) and took another guy with me. We held off the pack for about a lap (I think there was actually a rider off the front ahead of us as well) and then I completely exploded. The pack whizzed by, I latched on for a few seconds, and then fell off the back.
I ended up rolling across the line dead last — but I had a lot of fun. This spawned one of my new goals for this season: increasing my activity in races. I’m not going to sit in and let the race happen around me. If it means getting blown off the back, so be it. It’s a lot more fun throwing yourself into the wind and failing miserably than coming across the line in the middle of the pack with a set of fresh legs.
