I suspect that my title tells it all, I had a race yesterday and I didn’t show up. I didn’t forget, oversleep, and yes I remembered about daylight savings. While there were a lot of little things that contributed to my decision to not race, it really came down to the temperature. When we left the area, at 8 am when I expected to be getting on the bike, my phone said it was 46. It was just too cold for me to get on a bike going 20 mph, soaking wet, wearing a T-shirt and shorts.
That said, I still learned a lot! This was supposed to be a B- race, a hard training day, and I prepared for a training day. Lesson #1, for me a race is a race. Prepare for it just the same. I participated in a group activity the morning before, which ran late, causing me to miss the race talk. I don’t normally go to those any more because they are so redundant, but as this was my first aqua-bike I should have gone. Not knowing how it would work un-nerved me some.
If a race is an hour or more drive from the house I normally get a hotel for the night. I waited so long to get a room that the closest hotels were all sold out. My hotel, which looked close on the map, was a 30 minute drive. In reality, that wasn’t worth it, especially considering how the weather played out.
I should have thought more about the impact of the cold on my race. I knew it was going to be cold, but I just didn’t think about how cold that was. I’ve got a personal temperature limit for biking of about 45, and that’s wearing all of my cold weather gear. The only extra I brought with me for the race were arm warmers; no gloves, head covering, knee or leg warmers.
I always get a haircut pre-race. This time, because it was supposed to be a hard-training day I didn’t. That started to mess with my head a bit, I didn’t feel prepared.
I’d also forgotten to bring Melatonin, so I didn’t sleep well the night before, not all that abnormal but always irritating. Around 2 am I starting thinking about it being too cold. I kept checking the temperature on my phone, which was set for my home address. By 3 am I decided to skip the race, thinking I would finally fall asleep. About 10 minutes later I turned off my alarm, had my wife do the same, and that was it. I still didn’t fall asleep though.
When we got up that morning, around 8 am, I realized I’d been checking the temperature at my home address. When I changed it to the local area I found the temperature was 39. I wish I’d realized my mistake in the middle of the night as it would have made my decision much easier, and I’d have done it sooner.
So with all that in mind, what have/will I do differently? To start with I’ve already booked hotel rooms for all the out of town races I think I will do next year. The rest, well we will see…
