After last week’s cancelation due to rain and subsequent flooding of the course, the FBF waters parted ways and granted the Tuesday Night Tribe access to the promised land of pain and panicked panting. I was reunited with Mihael, my Romanian life coach for the drive out to the race, and we discussed the folly of my participation in the 123 field and the folly of him participating in any sort of bike competition whatsoever. We finally agreed that any sort of racing was essentially stupid and that we’d be better served if we turned around and headed to the Olive Garden. It was a real breakthrough session.

The first FBF race of the season is a reunion. You get to see the riders who still train, eat, recover and fret enough to show up to races and get their asses kicked on a regular basis. And I’m glad to report that there were many familiar faces at FBF on Tuesday, as we are all out of our minds.

The wind was blowing from a non-essential direction, creating a tailwind on the finishing straight, and there must have been some sort of attendance requirement for every strong local racer because they wall seemed to be there. There were no fewer than 60 riders from Lupus and Weather Channel respectively, with the other strong teams well represented as well. Team Rockstar was represented by; Chris S, Aaron K, James M, Paul Y, Erik L, Jonas G, myself and Josh S (the “s” stands for “someday I will finish one of these races”), which meant we had eight racers in attendance—I think that’s a new team record.

We lined up and then the race started. The first 60 seconds of the race were a good indication of what the night had in store for us. We went from zero to 34.7 miles per hour in the span of 56 seconds. It was a comically fast start, and the pace didn’t really relent for the rest of the evening. In fact, the activities of the next 58 minutes read like a TV commercial disclaimer for the side effects for an awful drug. I experienced: an unnaturally elevated heart rate, bouts of nausea, feelings of self-doubt, tunnel vision, numbness in the extremities, headache and anal leakage.

There were countless attacks and counter attacks and counters to the counter attacks. It was an endless churn of effort and recovery. Every turn I did near the front, required about a half lap for me to begin breathing again and start making my way back to the front. The speed of the race was high (we averaged 27.5 MPH), and that usually portends a sprint finish. We lost Josh (one day Josh, you will finish, I just know it!) and James to flat tires, and as the specter of a sprint finish loomed, I worked my way to the front because whatevs. As we hit the bell, I put myself in the position where a sprinter would go and stayed in the top five, hoping that one of the strong teams would drill it at the front and there would be a split that I could sneak into.

This didn’t happen. Scott S of Lupus (and the train of people clever enough to follow Scott S in a sprint) came alongside me with about a half lap to go, and my dreams of sneaking away vanished. We came through turn four with Alan R of Lupus on the front, and myself in the top five, and then everyone pedaled away from me. Alan won the race, with teammate Scott second. I finished in “who cares” place, and rolled back to the car, out of breath and too late for a reservation at the Olive Garden.