The Banana Belt series Race#1.
What a beautiful day. We were racing around noon this time so no need to get up ridiculously early. We left the house at 8:45 am; stopped for some coffee, OJ and bananas. We drove through some very scenic parts of Oregon on our way to Hagg Lake, just outside of Forest Grove, which is 10 miles west of Portland.
 
We arrive at the park, find a place to setup. Next we take care of all the registration stuff. Now its time to relax and enjoy the atmosphere. Some of my teammates are in the morning races, so we go watch the race for a while.
The time comes to start preparing for my race. I sit on the trainer for 30 mins and just spin the bike. More than warming me up, this also gets me in the right frame of mind. This is a carry over from the football days. I used to lie on the floor for 30 mins before a game to visualize the portions of the game. This is what I am doing on the trainer now. Going over the race in my head. Finally its time to ride around, I see some of my teammates and racing friends, always nice to chat with them. I ride down the road to an area people are talking about. It seems there is a pothole that covers the whole road about 3/4 of a mile from the start. It's even nastier than I imagined.

As we line up to start I find out our team has been split again. I will have only 1 teammate for this race. So we change our tactics from offense to defense. We will just try to stay with the strong riders and make sure we go with them if they make any moves.

As we start racing the pace is very high. Everyone is relaxed which is good. I don't feel as good as last race. My legs are hurting a bit and my back is still a little sore from painting all weekend. But I am able to stay in the front part of the pack. The peloton is working together to avoid the numerous potholes in the road. But on the third and final lap as the pace is picking up, I am sitting about 15th wheel. We roll up on a huge pothole, I am right on the edge of it. I get a slight bump from the left and fall down in it. My front wheel turns completely right and now my whole bike and body is going sideways. I prepare for impact…luckily I run into someone else. Which pops me back up. I am still upright, which is good. I have pretty much lost all of my momentum, which is bad. So I start trying to catch the pack.

I am working as hard as I can to get back on. I finally catch the back of the pack as the leaders cross the finish line. I finish 27th out of 35. It was a great race! I get 2 more shots at this course as this is a 3 race series, so we will be back out there this weekend.