It is finally here, racing season has officially begun, and with the arrival of racing my pretend racing training log transitions to a pretend racing journal. Those poor souls who follow my Strava feed will have undoubtedly noticed a week long gap in my quest for mightiness. That void represents the week that I spent in Florida on vacation with my family. Yes, I was in the land of theme parks, retirement communities, ointments, fresh tattoo ink, mobility scooters (not just for old folks anymore!) and poor parenting that is known as Florida. We spent a week visiting my parents in the land known as "death’s tractor beam". My parents have been escaping the Iowa winters for the past few years, and occasionally we fly down to spend time standing in lines waiting to see animatronic bits of polystyrene move and sing as we drift by in boats floating in water so toxic it could reanimate Stalin were it dripped on his tomb.

Zombie Stalin notwithstanding, it was a pleasant enough trip. We saw things, sat in seats on rides and spent time in North Central Florida not golfing and searching out happy hours. In theory, this should have been a restful trip. Of course, now that I use the ithlete app, I can quantify exactly how restful this trip was. I was excited to come home and put my newly rested body to the ithlete test, mostly because I am a suburban parent and the threshold for what counts as "exciting" has dropped precipitously in the past few years.

So imagine my surprise when, upon returning and testing myself, I found that a week away from training had actually made me more tired. There could be many reasons for this: I was on my feet for three days straight, perhaps it was the stress of travel or the explanation that seems most likely to me—Florida was killing me. I began riding straight away again, hoping to be ready for the first race weekend of the season, but I was not optimistic, as the pallor of Florida was still hanging over me.

The first race of the season is always a time of hope and unfettered delusion. Racers have built up a winter’s worth of self affirmation without the harsh reality of races or competition to shatter their illusions of speediness. Some hope that they will be able to field sprint, some look to break away from the peloton, some hope to spend a week rotting away in Florida without the time spent there having any repercussions on their fitness. But I digress. The first race of the season is the time to gauge one’s self-made image of themselves against the reality of actual racing, and to find where one is wanting.

As we rolled to the start line on Saturday, I wanted to spoon a polar bear in an igloo. Pre-dawn early season races are always cold, and Saturday was no exception. I was dressed in a manner that I hope would be initially too cold, and then settle in to be the proper amount of clothing, not too warm, not too cold—the Goldilocks ensemble, if you will. Unfortunately, mimicking a blonde porridge plunderer meant the first half lap of the race was spent trying to not shiver myself off of my bicycle. It was during my first lap "Harlem Shake" that the first break of the race got away.

Evan M of Foundation escaped with Ben F of Six Cycle and Richard S of Asphalt Green, and they stayed between a minute and thirty seconds ahead of the race for about two to three laps. It was a pretty impressive effort, as we seemed to be speeding along pretty well in the pack. I assessed the situation back amongst the followers and found that there were a few racers capable of bridging and reaching the break, so I followed them. I didn’t chase, because chasing is silly and that’s what Champion Systems is for.

The riders who could make the break did some moves, and when possible I tried to go with them. Eventually the race’s surges brought back the break. And there were some puffs off the front—including a mighty surge from myself that lasted a quarter lap—but the sprint writing was on the wall. I decided to pull the scaredy cat move of jumping near Tavern, as I had a preposterously slight chance of winning, and I would avoid what I felt was going to be an inevitable crash in the lead up to the finish. I jumped, I sputtered and I was caught before the hairpin to horse dung. It was about 200 meters later that the crash happened. i was already dropped at that point, and I rolled by slowly, feeling bad for the victims, but also feeling a smug satisfaction in keeping my body intact.

Roman’s Beer Corner

My training log may be over, but that doesn’t mean I stop my devotion to beer. I’m still going to post beers from Roman, and the offering this time is Labyrinth’s Crooked Black Ale. Such a label!