Wrong Times, Face Plants, and Lactic Acid....

As I rolled into Seven Oaks for today’s XC race I was a bit tired from a long week of training, but excited to do some racing regardless. I was under the impression that the Expert/Sport race would start at noon as that what it said on Bike Iowa. Anyway, when I pulled up I noticed that there were already alot of people looking like they were ready to go. As I was leisurely walking up to get registered Paul came up and told me that the start time was actually 11:00 so I had about 3 min to get registered, put my bike together, get dressed, and warm up. WTF??? So I got a number, then as Alex helped me put my number on I got dressed as fast as I could. My warm up consisted of the 100 meter ride over to the start line.....this isn't gunna be fun!! As Troy fired the shotgun to start the race I took about 3 pedal strokes and BAM, my chain popped off the front rings and I went over the bars....luckily my face broke most of my fall. I'm sure it looked a bit like this....minus the umbrella:

So after I put my chain back on and did a little bow for all the sport riders who got a first row seat for my crash, I was off in dead last place. As it turned out something happened to my middle ring and I couldn't use it for the entire race. Anyway, I tried to not go all out too fast and let my legs warm up a bit, but that never really happened. I just couldn't get on top of the pedals the whole race and because I didn't have any warm up and went straight into riding hard it felt like my entire body was full of lactic acid. I had horrible arm pump and well, just wasn't having a good day. I was running 41 minute laps which quite a bit slower than I have ridden there in the last few weeks, but no warm-up sure does take it's toll. Ah well.....any day on a bike can't be that bad of a day!! I'm just hoping that all of the problems I had today are out of my system now and I won't have another problem for quite some time...my fingers are crossed anyway!!....Peace