Good race, bad result

Howell Mountain's a well-run race on pretty good trails. It's well-supported and marked. I had a new bike that was pretty well-wired in.

None of those things helped me on Sunday.

I'd been feeling sick all week, and it turned out that any time I went over 80% I could not recover. Which makes it hard to race mountain bikes. I even managed to crash, and bruised my ribs pretty badly, which made it pretty hard to maneuver the bike through the twisties.

Once I resigned myself to not having any top end, I had some fun riding the course. I stopped and helped one guy whose pump was broken, I got out of the way of people who were trying to pass me, and generally acted like a good citizen.

I guess that everybody has a day like this--what they call "un jour sans" in the Tour--but I've never had one before. And I hope not to have one again.