A shot at hometown glory.

After the Settlers Life/Roan Groan debacle, I was fairly eager to get back on the bike, put in some work and have a good showing at the Edgar Soto Memorial race series.
Monday I went out riding in the morning and the afternoon, same thing Tuesday. I called Daniel Monday evening, and I believe I said, "If I'd had the legs yesterday I had today, we might have had a different story."
Now, despite what you might think, sometimes feeling good on the bike leading into a big race can be bad. It's certainly not that having good form is bad, it's what seems to happen whenever bike racers are feeling good, that is bad: they go hard. Monday and Tuesday I went hard, climbing whatever I could find, drilling it up and over then through the flats. Wednesday morning, I did an easy ride to loosen up before the training criterium at LP Field that night.
As usual, the race action isn't all that interesting to tell. A break went off, I didn't like the way some other people rode, I still didn't feel at ease cornering at speed and certainly not as others were bombing the turns elbow to elbow with me. I rode around in the field, attacked out once or twice, but was generally content to sit in and get a workout. Hindsight being 20/20, it would probably have been way better for me to jump on the front at the start, get in the break and only have to contend with 4 or 5 riders around me rather than 20 people I've never ridden with before.
Seeing a dude tank it in a turn not 200 yards after I passed him while we were warming up didn't help my gun-shyness in regards to hard-cornering and a fear of hitting the pavement
Just an addendum, because I hadn't mentioned yet and it's had a direct bearing on my recent riding problems. When I came home from the Tour of Atlanta, the week before I moved, I decided to extend my racing one more day and went to the Ace Speedway series. Despite tired legs, I attacked with a group of 5, lapped the field and kept trying to attack after that. Somewhere in the last 10 minutes, it started to rain. Just a sprinkle at first, but then it built up to a steady rain-not pouring, but steady. One of my teammates attacked with 2 to go, I sat on the front, two members of another team came around to chase, one led the other out with 1 to go for the sprint, we came into the last corner and I thought "Don't stand up to sprint until you're out of the corner, because it's going to be slippery with the oil". BAM! I was on my chest sliding down the track, still clipped into my bike. I never stood up, never made a hard acceleration, just went straight down according to the rider behind me. Not sure how it happened. I got up and ran across the line with my bike on my shoulder to claim my 5th place finish. I ripped my shorts, had a good bit of road rash on my left hip, a few spots on my left knee, inside my left elbow and on the left side of my ribs. The bruising on my hip was worse than anything else. It really became a problem a few days later when I had food poisoning and spent so much time laying down in the fetal position that I had to start alternating which side I was lying on because my hips were aching. Food poisoning is no fun, in case you were wondering. As far as I can remember, it was the first time I'd woken up in the middle of the night because I sharted in my pajamas since I was a baby-twice.
Back in the present, I decided I needed an easy Thursday, and only rode an hour.
Friday night brought 2 "races" down at the old track at the Nashville Fairgrounds. The fairground track was formerly a feature on the old Winston Cup Circuit, hosting the likes of The King Richard Petty, Darryl Waltrip, local favorite Sterling Marlin and even his dad Coo Coo Marlin.
The first race was a 1k time trial. Lacking TT gear (other than a TT helmet, which I always feel like a took wearing, even if I'm riding a fully-dressed tt bike), this was not an event to which I was looking with joy. It didn't help that I didn't feel like I could get my legs pumping pre-race at all, and my lack-luster time reflected exactly how I felt when I rode.
The later race was more interesting to me. It was to be a series of "sprint criteriums", 3-6 laps on the track, top 5 from each heat advance to the final.
Soon after my tt, they told all the riders to make their way to the infield and they'd soon start staging for sprint crits.
Time passed, and passed, and passed.
Finally, around 9pm, they called the p1/2 to the line, then promptly sent half of us away to wait longer. I had to wait.
When we finally made our way to the line, I was actually feeling much better. For some reason, 3 hours of easy spinning had really opened up my legs.
A NashvilleCyclist.com rider jumped out from the start and I sat on his wheel, assuming the pack was right behind. I was wrong. We apparently had a gap, which had I realized, I would have pulled through and contributed. As it was, on the backstretch another rider attacked and we were reabsorbed. I was feeling good, so I attacked to bridge out to him...or at least I thought I did. In fact, I didn't have quite the jump I thought and drug the field to him. I sat up and went to the top of the track-the field followed. As from my experience at Ace, I knew the attack on the low side would come soon, and it did. The rider who took off jumped out to a quick few hundred meters advantage. We got to the backside and I decided I wasn't going to sit back and let the race happen to me, so I attacked again, this time knowing I was going to drag the field on my wheel. I gained on the lone rider-fast, in fact faster than I wanted. I knew what was coming if I caught him too early, which was the field hitting out around on the top-side as I was stuck underneath behind this poor, valiant, but dying rider, coming through the last turn.
Couldn't be helped-but there was one thing I didn't realize. I'd actually put more into the field than I thought, and they didn't come by for at least a second later than I thought and not nearly as fast as I anticipated, so I probably could have moved up the track, passed and contested the sprint.
Oh well.
I had felt great, made some positive moves and had an impact on a race with legit pros in the field. I was feeling more confident going into Saturday night.
Saturday came and I was ready to go. I tried to relax that morning by reading the paper; saw an article confirming what I've been telling my parents for the past few years, that Nashville has some of the worst air pollution problems in the country.
In retrospect, I should have let that article sink it a bit before I moved on to reading the sports section.
I built up a set of pit wheels so it wouldn't be a flat that took me out of contention (the last time I rode the same course I double flatted and finished on a rear wheel with 30 psi), packed up my trainer so I could warm-up before the race (The training in front around the Wildhorse saloon and Tootsie's Orchid Lounge isn't so great) and prepped all my other equipment.
I arrived downtown about 2 hours before my race and set up camp above the course in a parking garage where I could see the finish line and the first two turns. Walked down and used the bathroom at the Wildhorse, hiked back up the stairs, changed clothes, put on the Ipod and started to warm up on the trainer.
I was in the zone.
I'd planned my nutrition well so I didn't have a heavy feeling in my stomach, but I didn't feel weak, my legs were firing on all cylinders and I was working up a rolling sweat while I watched the women's field detonate.
Just a note. I find it incredibly unfair that basically all the women are lumped into one race, although I understand why from a promoters prospective, it's necessary so that it's actually a field and not two "races" of 5 women each.
My parents arrived 15 minutes pre-race, I gave them my pit wheels to take down, told them I loved them, packed my pockets full of gels and headed down to the start line myself.
Even now, writing about it weeks later, I'm getting that pre-race feeling in my stomach that you can only understand if you've pinned on a number and thrown yourself into an unknown situation.
As soon as the women's race was over, the men's field charged the start line. The race for positioning was on! The course downtown starts up a small rise, turns left about 150 meters from the line, then turns almost immediately right-still up hill, hits another right-finally down, a high speed, tight right-hander precedes the back straight on which cyclo-computers probably read 40ish mph, a flowing right, then another brings you back to a small rise to the finish, about 200 meters from the final corner. Needless to say, field positioning is important in this race, as can become quite hard to move up in the field, and maintaining speed around the first few corners saves you valuable energy the rest of the field is expending just to hold a wheel.
I looked around on the start. Many of the top pros slated to appear hadn't showed, but there were still enough to make it painful, and more top amateurs than you could shake a stick at-all there to get a piece of the $13,000 purse.
I was nervous, more so than I have been at the start of a bike race in a long, long time. We waited impatiently as the organizers held a raffle for an authentic Gibson guitar, one of the race's title sponsors. Then they hauled a girl out from one of the local watering holes to sing the national anther; one of thousands of her kind in Nashville, a pretty girl who's dream of country stardom brought her to town, but now she's working in a bar waiting for her chance at Coyote Ugly-styled stardom. Los Angeles has actors for waiters and bar keeps, Nashville has singers.
She wasn't half bad.
After a bit more fanfare, they started the countdown to the start.
The whistle.
Things started happening very quickly.
I tried to get clipped in and head to the front, but I was stuck behind several rows of riders with the same idea. I tried to settle in and pace my effort. I was still having trouble with being comfortable in the corners; people were passing me. I started to think.
Thinking is bad in the first 15 minutes of a crit.
I started to hold my position, I was getting more comfortable turning at the break-neck speeds we were riding. It was only really the first, downhill corner that bothered me.
I started to make myself lay off the brakes.
I almost overcooked it.
"I'm still good," I thought to myself.
I started to move up on the back straight and out of the first turn. I was picking off one or two riders each lap.
I came through the third turn one trip through on the inside line trying to pass. A big dude from one of the pramateur teams apparently did not like my move and moved inside on me to try and make me brake and fall back.
I didn't. We hit the corner, and we were shoulder to shoulder, riding through the turn with him laying into me with all his weight. Now I'm not the smallest guy on the bike, but this guy had me by at least 4 inches. Fortunately, we weren't far off in weight and I held my line.
For some reason, as we went through the turn, I looked at him-I could see his face inches from mine. His face wore an expression of extreme surprise.
As we came out of the corner, I flipped up my left arm and pushed him away from me with my forearm.
It was on.
My adrenaline was pumping at this point, and I stared to move up again. I was feeling really good.
At the front of the race, a small break had gotten a bit of a gap and the field turned up the pace to bring it back.
I was in the top 15 now. Gone was the fear. Well, to be totally honest, gone was most of the fear, but I was getting it under control and doing what I had to do to hold my spot at this point.
We were flying, and I was having to work hard to hold the pace. Three or four laps went by.
I hit the front side climb and something started to feel different. I started feeling my legs.
Feeling your legs is bad.
I started losing positions.
I didn't know what was happening. I started taking a mental check, wasn't thirsty, wasn't far enough in to need to eat, didn't think I'd worn myself out warming-up.
Then I heard it.
My breathing had become a wheeze and a featured a wonderfully high-pitched whine on inhalation.
I was having an asthma attack.
"I don't have my inhaler. *Expletive*"
I tried just to fall back through the field and see if I could catch my breath. The field just kept on coming. I didn't realize how far I'd actually moved up until I saw the back of the field riding away from me. I still couldn't breath.
"I don't have my keys. Where's Dad?"
Now I normally just put my keys in a tray on top of my car when I race; not the safest, but a common racer tactic, so I figure I'm okay.
My dad was somewhere on the course with my keys, which I now desperately needed in order to get to my inhaler, which was waiting tantalizingly nearby in my glove box-but if I didn't have the keys, I could impotently stare through my window and know relief was just out of my grasp.
"Keep riding,son!"
"Where did that come from? Where is he?" I thought.
I saw him, in the second to last corner-the big one. I was off the back and flipped it, I yelled as I turned I needed my keys because I needed to get to my inhailer, post-haste. Dad ran through the corner.
"Lead me!" I yelled, holding out my hand.
He started to throw.
"This is not going to end well," I thought, just as they left his hand, arching upwards and just too far behind me to grab.
"Rider's up, OUT OF THE ROAD!" yelled the course marshall.
I dashed for the tape as I was now right in the racing line. Dad snatched the keys off the ground and we both made it under just in time for the field to whiz by at 35 plus miles per hour.
Dad said something about being so sorry, I could hear the sadness in his voice to see me suffering.
"I just need to get to the car," was all I could muster.
I rode through the crowd, much more aggressively than I normally would, pushing my way past bachelorette parties, kids, the elderly-it didn't matter, they were all roadblocks between me and a free breath.
I saw daylight and shot across the road to the parking structure. I made it to the car, struggled with the key fob to unlock the doors.
My fingers could not work fast enough to satisfy my brain to get what my body desired.
I finally grasped my albuterol from the glovebox.
I took a hit.
I took another...and tried to wait.
I was coughing, which isn't the worst sign in the world.
I slowly started gaining the ability to breathe. The more I could breathe, the angrier I was at myself for neglecting something so simple as putting my inhaler in a jersey pocket.
I hadn't had as asthma attack in 3 months, since it started to warm up in North Carolina. I remembered the pollution article.
*Expletive*, repeatedly.
My parents came up to the car. They were both concerned for my health, which was at this point fairly under control with the effects of modern medicine kicking into full effect.
They tried to tell me it was okay, which was not what I wanted to hear.
I told them I just needed a few minutes to calm down, I was okay, I was just upset with myself for making such a preventable mistake. I felt bad for telling them I needed my space, because I know they were just worried parents, but I was so fired up, and I'd put so much importance on doing well at my hometown race and proving that I had the potential to make my dreams of riding full-time come true and show my parents that I could compete and on and on and on. All I wanted to do was break something, or cry, I was just on fire inside.
A few minutes passed, and I started to calm down. I started to take off my race equipment. My helmet, my glasses with the night lenses, my gloves, my shoes-which I'd tightened within an inch of their life, and finally my jersey.
My number stared back at me.
#1.
"What a joke," I thought. It was alphabetically assigned, but at that moment, it seemed particularly cruel.
I put on a towel and changed into my boxers and slowly put on my regular clothes.
"Don't forget your pit wheels," my Dad said.
I would have forgotten them.
"Let's go down and get them, then watch the rest of the race," I said.
Walking down the stairs and into the crowd, the crowd watching the race I had only minutes before been contesting was painful.
I felt like I'd let myself down. I felt like I let my parents down, although I know they didn't feel that way. I felt like I let my team and friends down, even though they weren't there.
I grabbed my wheels and the pit mechanic looked at me funny. I winked a him, turned and walked away. I guess he knew the look on my face.
After I put the wheels in the car, I came back downstairs to watch the race.
"Where's the best place to watch?" Dad asked.
"Probably the back corner," I said, knowing that the corner that scared me the most to ride would look the coolest to watch.
For the rest of the race, I walked around watching with my dad. We stood in the corner and watched the riders fly by.
"Was I going that fast?" I asked incredulously.
"That plus some," Dad said.
Cool.
There was a small break with good representation from the strong teams. The riders in the break had teammates working to isolate the chasers and break up the rhythm, trying to help them stay away. A lone rider was doing most of the pulling to bring it back.
"He's having to do it the hard way," I told my Dad. I spent most of the rest of the race explaining the tactics of what was happening in the break, and back in the field to my father. He was fascinated. We'd gone to see the Tour de Georgia years before-the last year Lance raced-but at the time, neither of us really understood what was happening more than Phil Ligget and Paul Sherwin had explained on the Tour coverage each year. Dad had tons of questions about what each rider was trying to do, what the teams goals were, what they were thinking as each lap ticked by and the finish approached.
The break was caught. It turns out, the lone rider pulling was a masters world time trial champion. He drilled it.
The race was now 26 riders out of the 120 starters. It paid 25 deep. I told Dad the numbers, and we both commented how much it would stink to be number 26. I said someone would pop in the last 2 or 3 laps, someone that was just holding on now, but when the pace picked up again to set up the sprint would just be toast.
It happened, to several riders.
One of the pramateur teams amassed at the front, setting up a perfect lead-out. I explained to my parents (we'd rejoined Mom at this point) what was going to happen; how they would burn off one or two riders a lap to keep the pace high and the last rider would deliver the sprinter into the final corner, maybe a bit of the way up to the line, depending on what kind of sprinter he was. The guy who leaned on me in the first part of the race was the delivery man.
They're man delivered, and rode across the line arms raised in a victory salute. He had an incredible state-trooper mustache.
I hoped it was a joke, but I wasn't sure.
I was still coughing, and continued to do so for the rest of the evening, through burritos at San Antonio Taco, through the drive home past the haunts of my childhood and college years, through buying my Dad a Father's Day card (it was the following day).
I went to be exhausted, as I always am after an asthma attack, and unfulfilled. One more day race to prove myself, but it wasn't the same in money or prestige-at least in my mind.
I wanted a do over.