Cheesy racey biker stuff

January 20th and all the old suspects are back at it.
As part of my "keep racing till I turn into a mass of jelly and start sobbing" program, myself and a few other sport team dudes headed to Sacramento today.
The migration to the Valley has officially begun.
After making a few pit stops for pecan pies and whatnot, we made it to Land PArk by 8:20 to find the 10 am 4/5 race had filled already.
After some quick rethinking, we threw our master plan of Cat 4 domination out the window and signed up for the open masters and the 3/4 elite.
The masters race was a blast, lots of attacks, counters, and covering.
All the sporties did a great job, racing way over our heads, and staying very aggressive in a very talented field with some strong teams.
With a lap or so to go Sierra made a strong push to pull it back together and that was all she wrote for me as the elastic snapped and I went backwards and out of the fray.
Spent the next ten minutes at the car moving numbers around and barely made it to the 3/4 race.
100 young dudes in this one and while relentlessly fast, the riding was in stark contrast to the smooth masters. Driving into the only corner of note 8 across, slamming on the brakes, then sprinting the corner back to thirty.
Seeing as I started the race with cramps in my calves, this was not enjoyable. While the masters stayed in a tight pack, these fellas were strewn everywhere, allowing me to slowly move up in the middle and try to avoid the whipsaw at the end. I had the Nome with me and he wanted to escape the madness as much as I, so we moved up and found ourselves at the front soon enough. I hear a bell coming from the starters' table and hear the Nome saying "move up a little more". In the lactic acid haze enveloping my brain, a slow, ponderous question arises, " could this be the last lap of this hell?" Awfully soon but time can move quickly when you have many twenty-somethings pushing you into a curb every lap and so I resolve to get to the evil corner first no matter how many squares per minute I must pedal to do so.
I roll around the corner and the body decides enough is enough for one day. As the field rushes by Rich asks- " isn't this a prime?"
Doh!
Hopefully the that was the bonehead move of the season and I can get a little smarter as the weeks go on, though I have the bonehead bike racer chip deeply implanted in my skull and must fight to not give in.....:-)
Nice to see all the folks out there in the bikey community, the weather was nice and the post-race burritos were the bomb. LA Favorita is my new favorita, Bob Marley is great after-race driving tunes, and I am going out today in the wind in a small ring to hopefully shake some of these knots out of my backside, so all is good.