First Race of the Season = FAIL

The title tells it all in 1 word. FAIL. Chad Sullivan and I headed over to my parents place Friday night which is over in Poulsbo about 3 miles from Hood Canal Bridge. This was to stay in the camper trailer and cut the wake up time Saturday morning by several hours. However, we didn't plan on it raining all night. The trailer is like a tin can when it rains so it echoed pretty good and neither of us slept much. We headed up to Sequim with the beautiful camper trailer in tow. The weather was horrible all the way up to Sequim and about 10 miles away it started to lighten up and a few minutes later the rain had almost stopped. This was pretty unbelievable. They say though that Sequim is in a little circle where it doesn't get a whole lot of rain. I have decided if I don't move to Eastern Washington for the weather then it will be Sequim. We arrived and guess what.



I love this place. Our race start was at 9:50 and we arrived around 7:45 so we had plenty of time to get all set up and get a good spot.

It was going to be Chad, myself, Jon C, Chris B, and Tim C racing. It was 9:45 and all the Cat 3's were lined up for their 9:45 start. We made our way over there and I decided to hit the porta potty one last time. Came back out and the whole area was empty and Chad was on the road telling me everyone had left? It was Chad, myself and Tim. It looked like Chris had taken off a few seconds before because we saw him down the road. Chad asked what time it was and I looked at my bike computer and it said 9:50:25. We didn't here any sort of announcement saying that the Cat 4 field was starting early or anything to that nature. We were told later that they left 3 minutes early. I checked 3 clocks after the race and all 3 were faster than my bike computer. So they could have left even earlier than that. I was really upset as you can imagine. Not only did I ruin my own race by not lining up 10 minutes early I also felt responsible for the other guys too. I am the Team Captain and this should not have happened but it did.
I hung on to Chad for a few miles and then felt like I was about to throw up so I slowed down. Chad chased the whole race. I came around for the first lap and was still dumbfounded. Tim C and I waited then decided to just soft pedal until the pack came by and we would jump back in the group. The race was super fast. We came by the start line the next lap and we were cruising at 30 mph. We hit that a few times around the 11 mile lap. I went to the front at one point and put in a big effort to help bring back a couple guys then went to the back for the rest of the race.

A VALUEABLE lesson was learned. Arrive 10 minutes early to every start because you never know if the race official is on bar time. Next week Tour de Dung #2 and you can bet we will be lined up 15 min early.