Livermore CX- Surf City Combo

Livermore on Saturday- small race again- 9 A riders at the start and one singlespeeder- (me).

I felt good and kind of hoppy/ huppy, having fun heckling the previous couple of races and all the peeps, I like this little series and wish it got more attention, and it is nice being able to ride to a race from the house.

Bridged to the lead group containing Cameron F and was feeling groovy when a moment of inattention got me and I ended up on the ground in a gravelly turn with riders trying not to smash into me, I got up slowly with some weird feeling in my quad, like a strain but worse from the hip to the knee.
I figured I would try to move easy and got back onto my bike and made it back to third as Cameron took off with another guy in tow, I rode around for a while wincing but I don't like to quit and I figured why not keep riding and see if it went away, well about 7 laps in I hit the barrier when I didn't clip out quickly enough and did some freaking wild Flying Wallendas move with the bike above me, hopping on the other leg and then somehow hitting my calf with the pedal I'm going to guess but don't really know but now I had a bruised calf as well, now the score was two owies on one leg- I got back to Jay B but lost power a bit and gave up a couple places, ended up 5th and hobbled like a old mare headed to the glue factory, not a succesfull tuneup race by any measure and feeling kind of dorky for not hitting the HOP ride instead and doing three hours upright, not like that's always so safe , but damn.

Miz C and I had a hot date celebrating two decades together, and that wasn't going to be postponed for nothin' , especially something like a sore leg, so after dropping off Little C at Merkely and Alicats ( thanks again, BTW) we headed down to Aptos to this little spot of calm and relaxation, then adjoined to a dinner here.

Wow, sleeping in was fantastic, and after a long breakfast we headed up the One a whole 4 exits to Surf City.

Spent a hour or so yakking with peeps and heckling, then I had to see if I could go for the race, lots of arnica gel seemed to work and I tried to really warmup well before as to not tweak anything further- this was a great course for me, most of it really suited me although I lost time on the turns not wanting to crash and strangely on the grass I sucked- Russell pointed out my low tire pressure which I have been fooling with this year, going lower and lower, perhaps that was the deal, though I probably just sucked :-)

Ended up 6th I believe, the silver lining is really I'm suprised I got out there at all and had fun, which is where it's at- this was a incredibly fun race and thanks to all the volunteers that put it on, the costumes were outlandish and great, and the hanging out was off the hook.

Typing this with two icepacks hanging off me- I remember a old Ironman quote from a ex-football pro who gave it a try- " It was like playing in a intensely tough football game with no hitting above the belt"- yeah , that about sums it up.
But totally worth it.