Ryan Alexander Payne: Calamity of Errors

Montana, as far as states go, is not comfortable. She is harsh and often cruel, with her relentlessly overcast skies, burning summer sun, massive mountains, vast expanses of space, temperatures which are rarely nominal, soul piercing wind, and fire-driven summers, it is a place of extremes. Here there are few respites. The last time I lived here, I learned simply that any given worst case scenario will yield a good story, and usually some other boring life lessons.

Yesterday I participated in my first cycling race, the Cow Country Classic. It did not go well. Actually, it went worse than that, it was abysmal, "having immense or fathomless extension downward." Nothing in the race went my way, and I caught no breaks (of either the luck or cycling variety). This happened for a few reasons, but as Homer Simpson would say, it's all just "loser talk", and while I am a loser in many ways, this is my blog and I don't really want to talk about that.

On to the race. I suppose I should first start by explaining why I would do a cycling race. Well, the biggest reason is that my goal is to one day be an ITU racer which entails a draft legal bike leg (as in bike racing) as opposed to the standard time trail style. While they seem somewhat similar, aside from being accomplished on two wheels, they aren't. I essentially spent the 50-mile race getting dropped from each consecutive group, unable to muster the power to stay with breaks (as lame as they were). Yesterday I dug more deeply than I ever have on a bike, then I did it again... and again. Having lost the two main packs of my Cat 4/5 start around mile 40, I spotted a slight Junior who seemed to be all feet and legs, maybe he could pull me to the finish? No, the 13 year old dropped me like his pre-algebra text book and I was all alone. I had gone supernova in a most dramatic fashion, and had I any energy at all, the black-hole left by my prodigious bonk would have consumed most of western Montana. I was done, alone in the Montana mountains, 10 miles from the finish, struggling into a headwind, and I decided to make the best of it. I sat up, tried to enjoy the scenery (which was amazingly beautiful), felt the sun and set about composing clever witticisms for this post. My leisure cruise was then interrupted by this:

a bunch of old men, the Master A's. As pleasurable as my ride was at that point, I wanted to be done so I tried to sit in and let them pull me back to the line. As they had started behind me this was, I think, technically illegal and I began hoping and praying for a lifetime ban from cycling. No luck. Then they dropped me. Then this caught me:

a bunch of slower old me, the Master B's. ...and left me.

Then I saw the 200M sign. Apparently most people start sprinting at this point but since I was in survival mode and hoping only for a good story, I was content simply to document it, which made some spectators laugh.

Relieved that the race was over and eager to end my humiliation and drink a cold beer, I set about the 5 mile commute from the finish line back to the race start. My humiliation, however, was not in fact over, the two Master A's I was following then dropped me on a little hill. I rolled in by myself, a fitting end to my day. Here's hoping that my next bike race will be sandwiched by a balls-out mile swim and a bleeding-eye 10K run, although I'm sure I won't be so lucky.