The Race Weekend

The past weekend the plan was to run up to Omaha for the criterium portion of the Omaha Cycling Weekend on Saturday and then head for home and do the MTB race KC on Sunday. I knew it was going to be hot in Omaha but I had no idea that the humidity would be so high. At least we had a 8pm start time so temps were going to get a bit cooler than during the day.

Today the temperature at the MTB race was going to be HOT, at 100 degrees in the woods, there is no other way to describe it. So after arriving home from Omaha at 3am I rolled out to Shawnee Mission Park for the race. I did bring plenty of water and ice so I was prepared for the heat. What I wasn't prepared for was the trails. It's been a while since I've ridden trails at speed and the trails in the park are not overly technical but they are covered in rocks.  Oh well, I was going into the race just to start getting more time in on the mtb  so it was all good.

I picked up these super sweet GamJams Socks at the crit in Omaha. So with my cool new socks I set out for the start of the race. With a mile long gravel road start we rolled off into the course and I rolled into the singletrack in 2nd place. Shortly after that the leader fell and left me in 1st. Now that really wasn't my plan, I really needed to follow someone since I didn't pre-ride the course and my bike handling was a little rusty. But I took off and built a pretty big gap over 2nd place by the end of the 1st lap. Rolling into the singletrack at the start of the 2nd lap was where things started to go bad. As soon as I got in the rocky section of the course I could tell that my back tire was starting to lose air. Soon I was starting to focus on not bottoming out my rear tire on the rocks instead of focusing on my lines.

About half way through the 2nd lap I managed to get near the edge of the trail and catch my pedal on something. Whatever it was it stopped me on a dime and over the bars I went. After rolling into the rocks I noticed that I was also sitting in poison ivy. Great! I ran back to my bike to find that my bars had spun around backwards and the rear tire was just about flat. I got the bars back around and started riding but it wasn't long before I had to stop and put some air in the tire. Twice I tried to put some air in the tire and twice it failed. Now that I was completely frustrated I started to become real aware that I was more than a little beat up and decided to call it a day. I figured a shortcut to get back to the start/finish area to get my cooler and then head for the car. Once there I figured out that my shoe was full of bloody water and the cuts in my leg were a little worse than I thought. So here I am, covered in posion ivy oil and bleeding, and to be honest, I was more freaked out about the poison ivy than the holes in my leg.

To make a long story short(er), I got home, used my poison ivy wash and then decided I needed to have someone look at my leg. Mathgeek drove me to the Urgent care where it was decided I needed to go to the ER at the hospital. Since the cuts went down to the bone the worry was that a vein or artery could of been nicked, or that the bone my have been chipped. So after some poking and prodding, a little hole expansion, it was decided that there were not other problems and they could stitch me up.  In the end the total time spent in the UC/ER was 4 hours. I think the biggest bummer is that I'll have to miss the MTB race next weekend.

So much for my cool GamJams socks! Hope the blood comes out in the wash. This was after I tried to wash off most of the blood but it continues to bleed so it was time to pull out the emergency kit and wrap it up and head for home.

I can't forget about the Papillion Twilight Crit. The Mercy crew brought up 5 riders for the race and prepared for a fun night. We had a plan and it worked out pretty well. I decided to take it out hard from the start for a few laps to put pressure on the field. Once  I eased up it was time for the rest of the crew to attack and counterattack until we got the breakaway that we wanted. It didn't take long for the break to go with Austin, Shadd, and Adam in  it and Jason was back in the pack blocking and picking up primes. Where was I? Well, unfortunately those 4 laps at the beginning of the race made it really  hard to recover and after dangling on the end of the field for a number of laps I got popped. From there on out it was just a training ride for me while Austin rolled in solo for the win with Shadd 2nd. And came in 4th and Jason 8th and picked up a prime or 2 for good measure.

So overall I'd have to say the weekend was really a bust for me. A pretty poor ride in Omaha and a crash today makes for a pretty crappy weekend of racing but for some reason I'm still ready to race. The road team has 2 big weekends of racing left in Chicago and St.Louis before the end of the year and there are still a few MTB races I want to hit.

Of course after that there's cross..................