I don’t think I’m alone when I say I’m not the only person in the world who occasionally procrastinates. Individuals who may or not be me put off doing all sorts of things like: over-seeding the lawn, painting the fence, repairing the ceiling and getting your Chris King rear hub serviced on an annual basis (who knew you needed to do that? Well, besides Chris King technical manual writers and maybe, I suppose, Chris King.) Long winded list of what may or may not be the things that I’m passively ignoring right now aside, I’m here to write about a bike race. A bike race that I’ve put off participating info quite a while, and Tuesday I was able to finally get myself to the Augusta training series at the Sussex Country Fairgrounds, a race I’ve been meaning to take part in for years.

Now there’s really no good reason why I haven’t done this race before. It’s about an hour’s drive away, it’s on Tuesday evenings and I enjoy racing bikes. I have no excuse for not going, and I’m sure that the promoters of the race are utterly devastated that I have never shown up to prance about their course in my tight bike outfit. The bike stars finally aligned, and I would be able to make the dreams of Sussex County cycling come true. I would race at Augusta.

I hitched a ride to the race with my local racing pal Evan, and we took a Waze-induced back woods route to the fairgrounds. We arrived early to get a warm up in and reconnoiter the 1.5 mile circuit. It’s a fun circuit with a hairpin turn right after the start line, than a chicane to a long sweeping turn that hits a sharp left turn onto a quick little hill that brings you up and back down to the finish line. The laps take anywhere from three to three and a half minutes. As we went around the circuit, I noted that was a pretty stiff breeze coming across the course at a right angle to the finish line. I always enjoy a crosswind in a race, as I am a genius when it comes to hiding from wind and riding the laziest race possible. It’s my true calling.

We lined up for the race and that was when I heard one of the most unusual race instructions I’ve ever come across. The promoter told us that riders were allowed to take a lap off during the race and then jump back in. Let me say that again—we could take laps off. We didn’t need an excuse, no need to let air out of a tire, we could just pull over at the hairpin and take a break. Extraordinary. I felt as if I had finally found home.

We shoved off and the race began. In nearly every race I take part in, due to my status as the Forrest Gump of NYC bike racing (I’m slow and I’m somehow always around when things happen), I usually have a pretty good knowledge of all the racers involved. But at the Sussex Country fairgrounds, I had almost no idea who I was racing against; which was actually quite refreshing. Not knowing everybody made everything a surprise. I had to guess at who was a strong rider, who to get away with and who was working for a sprint. There were two teams there with numbers Skylands and Montclair, and they seem in equal parts interested in break and bringing the race back together. There were jumps and burst and I joined some these efforts and I initiated some of these efforts. No one was buying the efforts my lemonade stand was selling, so with a lap to go it was looking like a sprint.

I had been practicing what I would do in the sprint on the hill during the race. It was a sharp turn, but you didn’t have to brake. You could carry that momentum up the hill with a few pedal strokes and then it was smart to go left to avoid the wind. As we came to the line, I did most of this. When we hit the crest, there were riders coming back through the group, and I lost position coming around them. I hustled to move back up, but the effort at the front had already started. I was gapped slightly, but held my position until the line, finishing fifth. All in all it was a fine, fun night of bike racing, and once I figure out how to properly incorporate my rest laps into my race strategy, I think I will really be a force to be reckoned with.