Day 26

Hey guys,

So, I'm getting close to having a one month anniversary of my crash. Today, as a gauge on to where my riding is, I headed out to Dorthea Dix for the BHB Criterium series. I went out just to get the experience of a road race, and I will tell you straight up: I am not cut out for crit racing. I had only one goal: Don't crash. So, once the race started, I went away from the peloton straight out of the gate. I had around a 10 second lead, and then another guy caught up to me. I asked him, "Do you want to go?" And he said he would rather just sit up with the group, so I went back with him. We got through the laps, and as we came up on 3 laps to go, the group upped the tempo to very quick. We were moving pretty quick, and on a pretty crappy course. I got cut off at a double corner, and almost lost control. Right then, I just was done. I coasted off to the side of the road, and walked my bike back. I couldn't get over a paralyzing fear of crashing again, guys. I was so scared, it made me quit a race. I mean, I'm fine just riding by myself, but when I'm in a peloton with a lot of guys I don't know and may or may not have more experience than I do, I get really scared of getting taken out. I really hope that eventually I'll get over this fear, but for now, I'm sticking to riding by myself. So, I'll be out and about on the roads, training some, but I'm still coming back. We'll see how it goes. I'm still really messed up about the whole thing, so I apologize if I'm writing weird, I guess.

Happy training.