Race failure, 99.9 or 100% my fault

Elites was Heemskerk, Bunnin, then Dallas. Jon DNF'd after getting in 4 laps that probably doubled his ride time in the last few weeks, too much "extra cirricular" going on for him these days. Craig I think has more hammer than came out today. Mical and Trish both podiumed. Experts was a United Cycle guy, then Devin, then an Edmonton kid.

Shawn and Devin arrived for the 8am carpool up to Edmonton, relatively promptly, and after we fiddled with the bike rack for a bit we managed to get moving. Stopped in Red Deer for a little breakfast and some terrible coffee in my travel mug. Despite a few sprinkles on the way to the course, the course was basically bone dry - and a really nice course at that.

Race started out fast, the first lap got me warmed up well. After that, I settled in to my pace and felt good, despite how high the pace was. First lap I spent most of the time in 5th, then the second lap a lot of time was spent in 3rd. I even had the honor of spending most of the third lap leading, which was kind of novel.

Here's the part where things really started unwinding - I started cramping, despite not feeling like I was overdoing the pace. All of a sudden I went from feeling pretty positive to going backwards through the field - fast. Look out so guys don't rear end me! I had finished my small bottle of energy drink, and my feed bottle was plain water. I hobbled through the rest of the laps wondering why I had no endurance and thinking about how I should be training different. After getting passed at the line for whatever double digit spot I was giving up (I wasn't exactly racing for the line although I did pedal a bit faster so I wouldn't look like a total duffer), I went back to the car and got myself ready for a frigid bathe in the river.

I slowly rode down to the water, and put on my sandals so I could wade in with my bar of soap. I soaped up my hair really good so I basically knew I'd need to dunk my whole body in, but even the minute I was in the water made my ankles sore from the cold. Eventually I got myself in, boy was that refreshing. I thought my legs would cramp and I'd just float away.

Standing in the wind by my bag, I couldn't even feel the chill since my skin was numb. As I toweled off I saw my other small water bottle in the bag and took a drink. To my surpise, it wasn't my recovery drink. Which, despite mixing them last night in different colored bottles, made me realize I'd taken my double sweet just the way I like it mixture of recovery drink out on course today, complete with a it's ratio of protien and whatever else. No wonder I cramped!

So now I didn't feel so bad, I can take a bout of stupidity better than trying to rationalze pure physical incompetence. Problem was I pre-rode with just water, went to the start line with the water bottle, then quickly went back to get it and just grabbed the first one I saw. My guts still didn't feel all that great, but didn't really matter now that all I had to do was sit around then drive home.

I'm hoping to have a better race at Stoney Plain.