At least my tanlines are slightly more rediculous.

Well... I have had several good weekends of racing in a row, so I suppose I was due for a downer.

Let me first reiterate the fact that I was truly confused by a series of races taking place only minutes away from my house. I didn't really know just how dependent I had become on a routine. I tried to compensate for this by driving to the races and pretending that I was several hours from home. Of course the fact that I continuously left things at home did not really help.

Saturday was the criterium downtown Champaign. It has some clever "bike racey" name, but I don't remember what it was. I drove all of about 5 blocks so that I could warm up on a trainer next to my car. I lined up with a pathetic field of like 15. After an epic quantity of warm up laps the race started- then the rain started. It seemed like every lap someone else was falling or otherwise dropping out. I don't think it was actually that bad. The race sucked. It was single file nearly the whole time. It started pouring halfway through. Then, there was lightning, then our race was paused. After a restart as XxX guy went off the front (who I later heard was dropped before the restart?) Myself and the other two non-wildcard guys in the race tried to chase. I was very uncertain where the wildcard guys were. Then I started cramping and pulled from the front. The wildcard guys then complained at me for trying to grab like the 5th wheel. Seriously? You weren't going to let me into the paceline? I was pissed off and soaked at this point and dropped out on the next lap.

I was angry at the race and the day. I was pissed off when the announcer kept talking about how the Cat 3s were so much better at handling their bikes and thats why there were fewer crashes. Nevermind the fact that it was not pouring down rain... additionally, I can point him in the direction of several people in the Cat 3 race that will inform him that there were in fact crashes.

So... regardless of the fact that I was planning on going out for multiple beers Saturday night, I decided I needed to race Sunday since Saturday went so poorly. As it turns out, waking up late not eating breakfast and being a bit hungover is not a good combination for doing well in a bike race. The first problem was that I thought the race started an hour later than it actually did... bad start. Then there was the headache/ lightheadedness. I felt miserable the first 10 minutes or so then started to settle in. Around 20 minutes into the race there was an attack (by a wildcard guy) then about 15 seconds later there was a chase (by another wildcard guy) the field (of 15 people) accelerated. I felt nauseous and paused briefly. The field got a gap and I rode the rest of the race with Sam Wilson from U of I.

Moral of the story, I have had better weekends. Next week is back to the training regime and hope for some better times, albeit farther from home.