The Cat 3 Schmuck:   I Just Can't Get a Break….

Fort Davis didn't start for two more days, and I'd already lost.   This was supposed to be a good spring season for me.   Instead it had turned into the season that was almost good.   I'm applying to nursing school this semester and am waiting for either and acceptance or denial letter.   I've finished the more consuming science prerequisites, leaving nice easy classes and a part-time work schedule, all allowing me more time to train.   I've been more focused and structured this season than usual and I'm seeing the results in spades.   If all goes according to plan, I'll be in nursing school this fall. Training and racing time will be the first sacrifice I have to make, so I wanted to make the most of this, my last season of fitness for a couple of years.

My form had been coming along better than expected, but my finishes hadn't reflected it.   As a result of my “Death or Glory” (reference: The Clash ) approach to racing, an ill-fated break leaves me useless in a sprint.   Sprints stink anyway.   It takes a real man to podium with a break.   Much like the oil business, riding in breaks pays off grandly when it's successful, but costs dearly when it fails.   There is also a fairly equal degree of chance in both practices unless you're one of the talented few.  

I ended up going to Pace Bend practically on a whim with too little pre-hydrating (read: too much coffee) and a sleep deficit.   I had no expectation of anything more than a little entertainment.   Opportunity knocked, though, as the field looked complacent while a perfectly sized break rolled away that looked organized.   I bridged up with surprisingly little effort and then discovered that they had been projecting a rouse of organization.   No one wanted to work anymore.   I spotted Mitch Comardo in the group and, remembering him as the ‘cross season superstar that he was, I roped him into making an honest go of it.   Things were going well until my Gatorade stopped agreeing with me.   The mix must have been too strong, as my gut was bloating up with fluid while my body was dehydrating.   I started faltering on pulls and Mitch couldn't do it alone.   He asked if I needed anything to keep going, but there was nothing he could do for me.   In the final lap, in the one part of the course where we had been losing time each lap, we were caught.

At Fayetteville, after a lackluster Saturday (typical for me), I lit out after a small break with Matt Oseto.   We caught the break after about half of a lap, having picked up a third member along our way.   Our third man was already spent and when we caught the break of three, one of them would get dropped almost immediately, another was running on fumes and the third was hard to size up—he was strong at times but seemed to be holding a little back.   We still made good progress, though, until the end of the second to last lap, when two of our “tired” members sprinted for the line, and then heard the bell ringing.   Oops.   Next lap guys.   After that, the trust among us broke down and individuals began getting stuck out on the front when others were reluctant to pull through.   After nearly 30 miles of working hard, we were caught with a mile and a half to go.   I was both disappointed and furious.   We had snatched defeat from the jaws of victory.

Midway through Belterra Joseph Tokarski bridged up to me when the field was small in my mirrors and worked with me for a lap.   Before the finish hill I saw that we were about to be caught and decided to sprint with him for the prime before we both got reabsorbed.   First, he took the prime from me by half of a wheel, then, as I was recovering from the sprint, he didn't bother to.   Now that he had a gap on me and I still had one on the field, I was seeing stars and could barely pedal.   Next, Mitch came rolling by me at a speed I couldn't match.   We never saw either of them again.   Back in the group, I made what I could of the table scraps and sprinted to 6 th .   Of course, payout went five deep (regardless of what the flyer said).   That was just consistent with my season so far.   Last minute let downs or missing the cut by a fraction of a second.  

The next day, at Tunis-Roubaix, I had been ambitious and entered the 1/2/3 race and found that no slackers had bothered to show up.   I felt stronger where it counted than I had expected, though.   We had some strange interventions by lapped riders who were, in some cases, helping chase breaks, slipping into them, or sometimes shutting them down.   I found that during hard but steady efforts I felt great, and I was even able to grab on to manhy of the hard accelerations, most of which were driven by Stephan Rothe.   I only had a fixed number of these efforts in my legs, though, and it was fewer than the big boys had.   On the fifth lap, during one of these bursts, I was forced to the right of one of the water puddles into the deep sand, which kills all momentum.   The gap that resulted must have taken me five minutes to close, during which I couldn't see straight.  

Not 30 seconds after I'd caught back on, the winning break took their leave.   I was so spent by that point, the three riders who had been left behind with me later dumped me at the start of the last lap without even trying to.   I just shut down.   With a lap to go I could barely turn my pedals.   During that lap at least three others caught and passed me without trying.   On one hand, I was dropped, but on the other, I had lasted a good long time before being let go and never gave up until my body went on strike.

The next few weeks marked my taper for Ft. Davis.   For me, this is the big one.   Davis is what the spring season revolves around.   All prior spring races are just training for Davis.   In calculating my odds for Davis, I saw that the most threatening climbers in our field, Comardo and Tokarski, had been upgraded.   I later learned that Gil Summy, who's won Davis the last two years, wouldn't be going due to illness.   Things were looking better all the time.   The Wednesday Night crits began and I put up two more rides that I was happy with.  

Then on Friday the 13 th (no kidding) a mild saddle sore that hadn't been bothersome swelled up and became painful to ride on.   In denial, I rode anyway.   By Saturday, I couldn't sit on a bike at all.   Sunday, sitting in a chair hurt and I began to follow all of the advice available for this problem.   I still held some hope that I could get healed up by the next weekend.   Monday I saw my doctor and was glad to learn that it was ready to lanced so soon.   I was not so glad when he told me that he couldn't use a local anesthetic and the procedure was excruciating.   I left his office soaked in sweat from the pain and effort of holding myself down.   Another visit on Wednesday brought another tooth gnashing experience as well as confirmation that I would not be racing that weekend.   I was sick with disappointment.

All I could do now was rest, take my antibiotics, plot my return to fitness and try to stay mentally occupied.   The most upsetting part of this was that as a pure climber, Davis is the only race in Texas where I can truly enjoy my strong suit.   In any other race, I feel like an underdog.   The typical Texas climbs always level out before I settle into my rhythm.

I‘ve considered finding mountainous races to replace Davis, but Gila and Joe Martin are on Mothers' Day weekend.   Not a good time for anyone with a surviving mother or mother figure to go race.   I figure I'll go to Tri-Peaks, which features one mountain climb for cat 3's, but with a flat TT and a flat crit, it's a poor substitute for Davis.   I had all of this fitness and nowhere to use it.   Damn.   Damn.   Damn.

I suppose we're expected to use these occasions to re-evaluate our lives, our priorities, our values, what benefit we're bringing to the world.   Whatever.   I did all of that during other injury-related layoffs.   I worked several years as a mental health caseworker, so surely I've earned some good karma, right?   Maybe not enough—if that karma theory is true I must have done something awful to someone to deserve what happened to me in that doctor's office.    I should probably go give blood, do some volunteer work and rescue the next stray animal I see.