Packfill and Carnage

35+: A very hard race, very fast from the gun. I bridged to a promising break of 5 with both of the big teams represented so I thought it had a good chance...until a Columbia triathlete in the field closed the gap. Thanks brah!

Later the usual suspects (one guy who won 17 masters races last year) got away in a 3 man break and Ladd was sooo close to bridging solo (a couple seconds) but didn't make it and came back to the field. He looked like a whipped pup.

At one point my rear wheel decided to become detached from my bike. For you newbie's: in a fast crit this is generally not a good thing. It came out of the dropouts and seized up...skidding along. It's amazing I didn't crash (or anyone into me). It seems my skewer came loose somehow. I fixed it and went around to the pits and "hick frigtard official" says "you don't get no free lap for that" I'm like: my friggin wheel came out of the dropouts, don't you consider that a mechanical? He let me back in.

I battled back to the front and somehow ended up on Ryan Jenkins wheel near the end. Trouble is everyone else wanted to be there too so I had to really fight to hold my ground as these asswipes tried to bump me outta there. I was not going to go easy. Coming into the sprint things got congested and I ended up 20th. Blah.

Cat 3: 2 hours after the 35+ I felt horrible warming up...no surprise here. Once the race started I actually felt really good and even better as things progressed. I think that was due to the slower pace. This race was a whole lot easier than the 35+. There was a lot of attacking...I went off once and Toby bridged and we had a gap for about 30s before the yahoo's chased us down.

As the race progressed my legs felt great but mentally I sort of lost it. A loss of motivation to battle. With 3 to go I decided to either be at the front or at the back. I knew things were going to get pretty sketchy. Hmmm, I choose the back! I cruised for a while, chatted with Casey a bit then followed a couple of guys to see if they could go the distance and drop me off at the front. No go. I ended up drifting back and just doing the last lap with enough room to avoid any crashes.

Carnage: I sprinted easily to the finish and just before the line there was a tangle of bikes and a couple of guys went down. Hard. It seems Brian H's steer tube/fork broke and he augered (he's ok)...his bike shot out to the left and conveniently ended up in front of Ladd sending him airborn. I roll up, jump off my bike and LL's laying there in the fetal position, moaning. Lang's there (ER doc) and we roll him to his back...we check him out, convince him that he's still alive...he's OK, just minus a lot of skin. It sortof looks like he was drug behind the pace car for a couple laps.

It was actually quite a spectacle with a big crowd at the finish line...LL put on a damn good show for everyone. Near where we parked some dude let us borrow a garden hose and I did the ER scrub on him (this is going to hurt me more than it hurts you...) then basically poured peroxide over his whole body. The pictures show about half of the road rash he's got. At CVS the tegederm to cover everything cost about $60. Think of him tonight when you're sleeping comfortably in your bed after your relaxing shower. ;-) Casey finally won a womens race (right after doing the cat3 men)...it's about time! ;-)