I'm sure there were many uttering the same four letter "F" word on Saturday, FLAT! Man there were a lot of them, and I'm not really sure why. I still haven't looked at my punctured tube to see the problem. Nevertheless, I really enjoyed the race.

After standing in a chilly rain for 3 hours as a course marshal, I couldn't wait to get racing, mostly to warm up.

I was in the Masters 35+ 1,2,3 event. It was a somewhat disappointingly small field due to the weather, but I thought it turned out to be a fun and safe race.

I unsuccessfully attacked early and soloed for 2 or 3 laps, mostly to see how the legs were feeling after a 3 week hiatus from racing. There were a few more unsuccessful attacks then a prime lap came around.

Prime laps are often a good way to get a break started and that's how things turned out in this race. Marc Zionts of Alberto's started things, following him was Jacques and I was right on his wheel. I ended up getting by Marc right at the line to take the prime but more important, we had quite a good gap on the field. Marc and I were shortly joined by Randy and the "break" was established. I use the term break loosely because the field was so small.

I don't remember the exact sequence of events from this point on. It seemed like every time I looked around, our group consisted of different people. Someone would bridge but then someone would flat. I think at one point we had maybe 6 people total, including 4 XXX riders. Not bad odds. We were told that Ed was bridging up as well, but his second flat halted that. For the remainder of the race, were just ran a consistent pace line, temporarily interrupted by one more prime.

Going into the last lap, there ended up being 5 of us - me, Randy, Jacques, Marc Zionts, and a PACT Dish rider. Half a lap to go, I notice my bike seems a bit more springy than usual. I look down and sure enough, flat. Well, out of my mouth came the real four letter "F" word, then I pushed as hard as I could until the tire was completely flat, to try to give something of a leadout. Unfortunately this was only a few seconds worth of effort, and the remaining four sped ahead of me to contest the sprint. We had a big enough lead, that I was able to carefully ride the flat in for fifth.

Had I gotten fifth after a strong leadout for an eventual XXX victory, I would have been quite happy with that result. As it was, this was the most disappointing top 5 I have ever had. To not have been able to contribute at all, either to a teamates win or my own, at the final key moments, on a day when I was feeling good, was very frustrating. Alas, such is life I guess. Three of the top 5 spots was very good, but a sweep of the podium was within our reach. Maybe next week.

I thought that even with the rain and flat's, it was a great day of racing. Thanks to Brian Stockmaster and everyone who organized and volunteered for the race, it was a great success.