Baystate Cyclocross Day 1: Instant Karma's Gonna Get Ya

Tough week. Most of my training in the rain, head not into it, ass dragging. Felt like a serious CNS burnout and I was starting to worry about a major crash and burn for the last few weeks of the cross season. A lot of this was brought upon myself with the stupid rant I let loose on the internet last weekend. Monday morning reminded me of when I used to drink and would wake up after an especially hard night of drinking.. The kind where you slowly open one eye, try to figure out which room you're in (or house for that matter), check under the covers for clothes, and then try to assess the damage you might have caused. Man, was that a stupid rant to write. I agonized over it for 3 days, kicking myself repeatedly. But hey, I made a mistake, I apologized, and I moved on. But it definitely had a negative effect on my workouts this week, and coupled with the rain I was not enjoying the bike at all.. But Thanksgiving morning everything changed. I was out for a ride, the sun was threatening to come out, the fog in my head lifted, and I enjoyed the hell out of my training ride that morning. Did my "openers" in the rain on Friday, legs felt good, lungs not so much. Maybe just the weather? On to Sterling......

First Verge races in a few weeks. Overcast, windy like the loudmouth blowhard in the Mexican restaurant the other night, windchills in the upper 30's. I sheepishly went into registration to get my number, half expecting "Wanted" posters with my picture on it, hoping they'd have Jack's picture on them instead. Jack Hayden and I get mistaken for each other all the time and I was thinking this would be the perfect time for me to benefit from a little mistaken identity. Got a quick warmup lap in, surprisingly, the course was dry. I switched the "Muds" off the bike and put the Tufos back on. Warming up on the trainer before the race I was feeling gassed with any hard effort. Not good. Legs were good, lungs were not. Like I said, tough week. Put on my new kevlar, bulletproof team jacket and a Jack Hayden mask and headed over to staging...

As a matter of fact I did feel as bad as I looked...

I was smart enough to register early so I got a good number. I was in the 5th row right behind all the callups, not a bad starting position. The whistle sounded and we were off. I clipped in cleanly and got a solid start and stuck in the middle of the pack with probably 30 guys ahead of me. We quickly got to the runup and I was already hurting. Shit, this was going to be brutal. Came down the hill on the other side of the runup, over the horse jump and through some chicanes. I was getting passed and I had no answer. The first two laps I got killed. I was panic breathing. My legs are spinning the pedals, raring to go, screaming at me "Pedal harder you friggin wuss!", but my heart rate was through the roof and my lungs couldn't support the effort. 

Random woman looking like she smelled something bad just happens to be standing

downwind from where I'm having a really sucky day. Coincidence? Umm, probably not.

This is what wanting to crawl under a rock and die looks like

I watched as a group with Matt Domnarski, Kyle Wolfe and another Horst guy pulled away. These are guys I've been able to beat this season, wtf! Then I settled in with the Carls.. Carl Ring and Carl Wittig. There was one or two others in with us too I think. At one point on the third lap I got passed by a guy in Team Fuji gear. I was astonished that I was on the third lap and I am just now getting passed by former pro Frankie McCormack. Holy shit, he must be having an absolutely miserable day. I got by Frank again shortly after that and never saw him again. Only explanation for this would be he had swine flu or was drunk, or both. 

Unaltered photographic evidence of me in front of a Cat1 strong dude who was 

apparently having a much worse day than I.

Speaking of being ahead of really strong guys having a bad day really late in the race, I also got passed by Steve Rosczko coming into the start of lap 4, but held onto his wheel as he went by. Coming into the runup I got back in front of Steve, but Carl Ring got by me. I hate getting passed on runups by guys with shorter legs than me, but apparently he had bigger lungs today.. So here we are on lap 5 and it's back to me and the two Carls. I got in front of the two of them and put the hammer down. Witting stayed on, Ring dropped. By the time we came back around to get the bell for the final lap, Wittig and I had a good 20 seconds on the closest chaser. 

Out of matches.. Hey Carl, got a light?

We could see the group with Aspnes and Wolfe about 20 seconds ahead of us. At this point I had been pulling at the front for 3/4 of a lap and was straight into the wind as we came around the cinder track. I was on fumes. Carl comes out from behind me and says "let's go catch them". I looked over at him and spluttered "unh, oog, oof, hmmmngrrr". He must have understood because he got in front and I latched onto his wheel for a much needed draft. At this point I looked over my shoulder and I see my buddy Ryan Larocque. Ryan's one of the strongest guys in our field, one year removed from racing with the Pros, and typically finishing top 10-15 in the elite masters at the Verge races. My first thought was that he was in the lead and I was about to get lapped, but that idea was quickly dismissed because as strong as he is, he's still not going to be that far in front of Jonny BOLD (a name that must always be in CAPS), and the cyborg Aspholm. So Ryan must have come out of the pits after a flat or something and he was just coming back in. This is where the wheels came off for me and the bad karma I accumulated earlier in the week was going to kick me square in the balls. We hit the runup and instead of jumping off my bike, I just kind of poured myself off of it and fell over in the mud. I got up and stumbled up to the top hill. Remounted, but there was so much muck and grass in my pedals at this point that I couldn't get clipped in. I came bouncing down the hill with my feet bouncing all over the pedals, around the corner, back off the bike and over the horse jump. Finally got clipped back in. At this point Wittig opened up about a 10 second gap on me and I chased with everything I had, which at this point was about enough to beat my 10 year old in a 20 meter foot race. Still had enough of a gap on Ring that he wasn't going to catch me unless I did something stupid. Made my way around the pavement, over the barriers, very sloppily, and around the ballfield. At this point I had about 1/4 of a lap to go, if that. I could have just continued at my pace, rode the sketchy dirt/gravel 90's conservatively and finished in the position I was in, but I had actually closed to about 5 seconds of Wittig at this point so I stayed aggressive. I came into the first 90 on the gravel at about 15mph, barely braking. I leaned into the turn and my wheels went straight out from under me. No warning. No sliding. Right out. To make matters worse, an official disguised as a small tree was right on that corner and stepped into my path to make me pay for my unfair comments last week. I slid into the tree at full speed, missing my head by a matter of inches. I know how close it was to my head only because my shoulder took the full blow, which last time I checked, was right next to my head. The impact brought me to an immediate stop. I was stunned and I was in a shitload of pain. I heard a couple people asking if I was alright and I heard somebody take my bike away. Then I heard a couple riders go past. Then another one, maybe two or three. I had no idea what was going on really, I was completely dazed. I got to my feet and staggered to the guy holding my bike (as it turns out the people who helped me were my friends Mark Suprenant and fellow ECV'er Gary Passler who were camped out on the corner). As I grabbed my bike to take off I heard a voice say "You're going to finish?!?", to which I replied "Unhh". I looked behind me and there was a group coming up but I probably had 20 seconds on them. All I had to do was ride without incident as fast as I could and I would hold whatever position I was in. They were gaining on me but I was keeping a good enough gap. I had a piercing pain running through my shoulder but it was only about another minute to the line. As I came into the finishing straight I looked back and knew I had held my position. I came across with my arm in my lap as Richard Fries announced over the PA that "an ECV rider just came across the line who either ate too much gravy on Thursday and is holding his stomach or he has a shoulder injury". I ended up 39th on the day but only lost 3 spots in the crash. 

Ryan in front, Aaron waiting to make his move from the back

Carl Ring came up to me after the race and said "Sorry to have to beat you that way, Kevin.".. And my immediate thought was "oh, you mean getting ridden off my wheel on the last lap and then coming from 20 seconds down and passing me after I slide head first into a tree, probably snickering as I writhe around on the ground in agony? you mean you're sorry for beating me like that? gee thanks, Carl".. Instead I just looked at him and said, "Uhh, I hit a tree.". To Carl's credit, he had a really good result on the day. Him and I regularly finish within a few spots of each other and have become something of each other's nemeses (especially according to crossresults.com). The medics hunted me down after the race having seen me cross the line with my shoulder hanging somewhere down by my knees, checked me out, gave me the OK with no major damage (no dislocation, no broken collar bone), told me to go get x-rays. No lollipop, but then again I didn't ask....