I had a plan. I didn’t formulate this plan before I got to the start line of the CRCA master’s championship race, but I’m pretty good at assessing a field (especially a field full of dudes I’ve raced with for years) and deciding on a course of action, so when I lined up for the master’s race and looked around, I decided what I would do. The race contained many familiar faces, but two racers stuck out. Jerry from Wonder Wheels and Chris from Big Hit. They are both strong riders and both had teammates with them. There would be no breaks in the race that didn’t include them. So that made my plan easy, follow those guys and if they start working, work with them. Bikes are easy sometimes. But just because a plan is easy to understand that doesn’t mean that it’s easy to execute. You could make an argument that a bike race is a collection of conflicting plans coming together to create a scenario that only makes one person happy.

But enough philosophy, we all want to hear about middle aged men exerting themselves in a public park in the early morning. The race settled into a rhythm. Chris would attack before the descent and then again on the hill, Jerry would cover and Kevin from Blue Ribbon and I would hang on. This happened about twelve times. Chris and Jerry were definitely locked in a battle, and I had no teammates to work with, so I left them to it, because there wouldn’t be any breaks getting away without both of them.

And so it went, we did multiple 800 watt efforts followed by regroupings, which made the overall pace of the race relatively slow (we did mostly 14 minute laps at around 25 mph, the A races are usually about 2 MPH faster, with many more desperate moments for this guy), and then it came down to the last lap. The finish was at Tavern, so there’s always the temptation to hit it on the hill and cruise downhill to the finish. I was near the front as we crested the hill because I’m a dumb person who doesn’t want to do well in bike races. A Paria racer took off and I neither covered the move nor did I hang back to get dragged up to the move. I made an effort to try and get across, but my effort was, uhhhh.. not adequate.

I did not follow the plan, and that’s a shame because it was a good one. Chris and Jerry flew past me with Kevin in tow. I tried to get up and catch on but alas, I had shot my little bottle rocket into the lake. Kevin came around Chris for the win with Jerry third. I still “sprinted” because the field was a mix of both 40+ and 50+ masters racers, so you never know who’s older or younger. After the race everyone tries to figure out the age of the guys who finished ahead of them. It’s an embodiment of the song “What’s my age again?” Interpreted by a group of guys who could be convinced that the song was written by Sum 41.

In the end, my 50+ lottery number didn’t pan out. I did a silly thing at the end and that’s how it goes. I’d like to say that I will return next year’s championship a year older and a year wiser, but I will mostly be a year older.