ouch

Went down pretty hard in the first 200 yards of the state cross race today. Got a great position on the starting line, had a solid start and was top ten (out of 101) through the first bend, then experienced a bit of bad racing luck.

Longer story short, ate shit, jacked up my right shoulder and hip, and bruised my forehead, elbow and knee a wee bit. The Empella suffered some wounds of its own: rear tubular wheel is all wobbles now and the top tube has a nice golf-ball-sized dent in it right where the handlebar must have tooled it in the crash.

On the bright side, at least this might be the last race of the season for me and the Empella. Plus, now I have a better reason for getting myself a replacement "A" bike for next year.

On the not so bright side, the shoulder has started to hurt again and the red mark where it hurts look to be some sort of contusions rather than spots from the heat-packs I had on the area after the race. This is not awesome.

As for the race, besides getting about a three minute delay courtesy of the crash and subsequent confusion, requisite wheel change, etc. things went OK. I wonder if this is because I pretty much had to start from the back of the field and work my way up and it didn't really matter what happened since I wasn't going to win anyway, much less make the top 10 or even 20. I just went as hard as I could go. It was great getting encouragement from friends and co-workers, especially from Ped who was yelling at me that I was gaining on Dick Tanner. Looking at the final standings and considering the time I was making up each lap, had there been one more lap in the end I'd have caught not only Tanner but Apples as well.

But it wasn't in the cards, I guess. And c'est la vie. I am not glad that I crashed but I feel like it helped me to relax a bit about the future racing seasons. Sometimes you feel good and sometimes you don't; sometimes things go well and other times the odds seem stacked against you even before you hit the end of the first lap. I am glad to gain this perspective as I'm sure it'll help me race better, smarter, and ultimately faster next time. And there's always a next time.

See you bitches next season in the B's!