exit17

That sucked more than anything has ever sucked.

If I ever say to you “Hey, I’m going to go do a 97 mile road race with lots of climbing,” pistol-whip me into a three-day coma.

Please.

Because Tour of the Hilltowns sucked more than anything has ever sucked in my five years of bike racing. I have never cracked so badly in a bike race. I fell apart worse than the Tacoma Narrows Bridge (yes, I was just watching Modern Marvels).

For your viewing pleasure, here is the course profile with my annotations (click on it!):

It got to the point where I would be riding up the final hill (where I was going ten miles an hour), and I wanted to stop, sit on the side of the road and cry. My legs were wrecked, my spirit was broken, and all I wanted to do was drive my car and my bike directly to a pawnshop and drink all the money that I would get for it.

Even today, walking up the stairs of my apartment, my legs hurt. Still.

I don’t know who won my race, and, frankly, it doesn’t matter. Because by the time I had finished, they had probably taken a shower, had lunch and gotten halfway through writing a dissertation on Dostoyevsky.

Things that were going through my head during the race:
- Creating lyrics to the song “Bike Racing Sucks” – which are “Biiiike racing sucks. Oooooooh bike racing sucks,” repeated infinitely, or until you catch the group at the base of a monster climb.
- Thinking about the best way to sell my bike – eBay as a whole bike, or a frame and group set? Craigslist? Selling it to someone on the UNH team?
- Wondering how I should spend the upcoming week – Completely demoralized, off my bike and drunk; or motivated to improve and getting in good training?
- The song “Rage!” by Chromeo.
- Hoping that more people give up – if that happened, I’d have more friends to ride with.
- How good my post-race Baconator was going to be

So, yeah, that was a ton of fun.

Time to put Tour of the Hilltowns in the “don’t do again for a really long time” pile of races.

p.s. Dear other teams that I might try to get on…I’m a really strong racer. Really. I swear.

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