That Familiar Burn: season closer

Well folks that it, the 2006 bike season has come to a close. A little depressing...
Yesterday was the state champ race in the cities. The course is pretty hard, hills to bike, stairs to run, turns to make. All extremes. At the start I was switching into start gear and I found out my back brake was rubbing, not good. Apparently I did not adjust it right, I thought about disconnecting it. I decided against it, and tried pulling the brake hard, luckily I had not tightened it very well and the wire slipped making it wide enough not to rub. And luckily it was my back brake instead of of front.
Oh, and it was really cold...33 or something like that.
My start was terrible, I was in the middle back of the pack for the first bit. The start is a gravel road and it was really really dusty, it made things hard to see. I was in the backish until we got to the stairs. I knew people were slow at this so I took off all out. I think I passed a good 10 people there. Then I just kept the pace high until the race thinned out, that took 2 or 3 laps. Eventually I found the guy who was winning the A2 standings, I just stuck on his wheel for a while. Sean eventually caught up, I dont know when I passed him though. He worked for me for 2 laps of so trying to get rid of the guy. Unfourntuatley it did not work. I stayed with a group of 3 or 4 for the rest of the race, or just behind them. They would gap me on the road and I would catch them on the hill and run ups. However, I never managed to hold on. The last lap I put it all out there and got really close to catching them right at the end. So I missed A2 state champ by 20 meters. Nuts. After the race I realized that my front brake had been rubbing just a tiny bit, I wonder if I could have beat the guy without the rub.
Oh well, this cross season ended really well despite that. Since this was my first year of A things started a bit slow. My first race I finished 30 out 37, the next few races went like that, just a little better. I was getting frusterated as to why I could not ride bike. Then at Anoka something clicked, and I got faster, a lot faster. that race was 6 out of 24. The next day went even better as I defeated Sean in our race. ha. And yesterday ended the season well with 11 out of 55. I am really happy how much improved. Hopefully next year I can do the same!

faster!