UT Weekend 2011

I finished our road race for the first time ever. With the pack. It felt good. Crashing at the start of the last lap did not feel good. Despite the weather forecast of "sunny and in the 80s" we had overcast with occasional light rain in the 60s. Still not bad, until one of the rain cells hit right before a corner and made the road slick. For the only time all day. Not expecting the road to be slick, or to be sliding when I went into the corner, I instinctively tapped my brakes. Which sent me right down onto the road.
Two other guys did the same thing, so I felt slightly less like an idiot. And the pack slowed down for us to catch back up, so everything was good. We cruised for a bit and were really cautious in the next few corners, but eventually the pace picked up again. There were some attacks. My left hand was pretty sore from hitting the ground and I couldn't put pressure on it to follow the pack surges, but riding at a steady pace I was able to catch up every time the attacker was caught and everyone slowed down and waited for the next one to go off.

My priorities after the race:
1) Get some people to look over my bike and make sure nothing was broken (nothing was)
2)Take pictures of the blood and guts* (not too spectacular, but still...)
3)Get the medic to clean up said blood and guts
*

There was a TTT in the afternoon. I sat it out, figuring the team wouldn't benefit so much from someone who wasn't able to ride in the drops. Instead I got corner marshal duty. I stood here. It was super fun.


Sunday was crit time. I was a little worried about my hand, but I bothered the medic for something to use as padding in my glove, and she had some sticky rubber stuff that was absolutely perfect.
It was a typical Men A crit - S. Haga and some MSU guys got in a break that lapped the field, with some occasional other attacks that MSU covered. When the break caught up MSU continued to attack Shane, but he was riding strong enough to cover all of them himself and still win the field sprint...
I would've liked to help him out some, buuuut I was doing just fine sitting in. Maybe next week.

Right now my hand is pretty much one giant bruise and I think my ring finger might be broken. Awesome.