It's Not Cross, But Still Fun

That felt like my first big time race back from the crash.

I entered the Tour of America’s Dairyland Thiensville race in the masters 35 plus 3/4 race. I had done a boatload of training miles, intensity, and lifting in the weeks prior to the race, so I had no sense of what my legs would do.

Last year, in my “comeback” year, I started in Thiensville in the masters 1, 2, 3 race because that’s what I used to race.

I lasted all of 7 minutes! The next day, I raced the 3s and lasted 15 minutes. I clearly was not ready to race!

Yesterday, I felt surprisingly good. I purposefully stayed at the back, avoiding the riders who don’t know how to corner.

When the announcer yelled there were 10 laps left, most of the remaining field got all wound up and tried to make their way to the front.

I didn’t plan on sprinting so I sat back. But with eight to go, my legs started twitching a little, and I started moving up the field.

My chain, which had snapped in warmup under my incredible power, had been fixed with a master link. But I was having shifting problems. 

And with five to go, though, bad luck struck. The chain fell off to the inside and then wrapped around the rear derailleur.  And there were no more free laps.

Craig, one of the officials, said I had gotten my bad luck out of the way!

But I was thrilled that I had some legs under me. Today is Grafton. If the storms hold off, I’ll race again, and this time I plan to actually race, see what’s in the tank.

Anything that’s there is going to be a welcome surprise, and I’ll be grateful!