BUMMER. I could not be more bummed. I just can't seem to shake the bad race karma for some reason. The course was bone dry, but very choppy. I was having the best race of my life, feeling so strong and actually keeping Andy August (one of the best racers around) in sight without killing myself. I was way ahead of anyone in my category, and I was confidently holding 2nd overall behind him. He was flying though and I was using all my training I did this off-season to keep on his tail.
The start went great for me-I was slow to clip in as expected with the new pedals but my start practices this off-season really paid off. I clipped in a few seconds late and rode past everyone until I found myself behind Andy and I stayed there the rest of the race. I wasn't too eager to try and pass him because i'm smart enough to know that he's always got more left in his tank, and moreover, chasing him is as close as i'll get to private lessons from a pro. It's not just about going fast, the strategies he employs during a race can only be learned from years of experience, and even though EJ tells me all the stuff anyways I just have to see/experience some stuff for myself before it really clicks.
We lapped everyone pretty quickly and settled into an excellent, uber quick and consistent pace. With a couple laps to go I was pedaling up a hill and my chain just dropped. I could not make it happen again if I tried. My rig is so dialed in...there is just no reason at all for it to have happened but it did. When it dropped I was torquing up a very steep hill and smashed my knee into my fork so hard I could not even hold in the scream of pain and a couple other choice words. I then ran up the hill, clipped back in and realized that my leg was 100% useless. I found myself slowly tipping over into a bush in excruciating pain unable to even clip out.
To make things even worse I just plain old couldn't make my leg walk. Believe me I tried, but in the end I had to give up and a nice man named Bob marshaling the race gave me a piggy back to the cart where Doug (race director) met me and drove me back to the line. I then sat there and watched the rest of the racers finish while I iced myself up for the drive home. I like to keep pretty low key...so all the drama I caused was pretty uncomfortable let alone the injury.
But wait...there's more!
My keys were in EJ's van, and in his defense he checked with me multiple times to make sure I had all my stuff together before he left, but I forgot. So I gimped to my car ready to just get home only to realize that I had no keys and my cell was in my locked car! Geez! Come on! Seriously?? Lucky for me my friend Doug had not yet left and let me use his cell to call Chelsea to call Cher to call EJ to turn around. What a crazy night. Now i'm just sitting here icing the knee, hoping when I wake up in the morning it's just bruised. If it would stop spasming i'd not be so stressed about it but man is it twitching and man does it hurt.
So in short...DNF. Yep, I just used all those words when a simple "DNF" would have sufficed.
It doesn't look like much. Pretty swollen in person but in the picture it hardly looks like anything happened at all. The skin and hair Jim pulled off the lockout knob speaks for itself though. I hope it stays that way. If it looked as bad as it hurts i'd be in real trouble, so i'm going to take it as a good omen.
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