Pinning on the number

There's something very final about pinning the race number on your jersey. At that point there's no turning back - you know you're going to line up at the start and go. Yesterday I raced Pine Flat RR. It was cold and cloudy at the start and stayed that way the entire 3 hours. I felt good the first 25 or so miles of rolling lakeside racing, but the final rise before the long descent to the valley floor saw me spit out the back. I've had early season races where I've been shed at mile 5 so this was actually a pretty good day. The 55+ Masters group I was in was only 14 or 15 strong, but all of them were strong. My peers included multi time national champions and the pace was pretty ferocious. I was riding 3-4 cogs higher on the hills than I would in training. I've got a long ways to go, but then there's a lot left of the season as well. When I was a 35+ Master there would often be 50-80 racers lining up and I would finish 25-30th usually. In the 45+ the fields were smaller and my finishes would normally be mid pack. I even managed 10th in one district road race championship. But now that I'm a 55+ it seems that only the 20-30 guys that were always faster than me are still racing so I end up as often as not DFL or close to it, as I did yesterday finishing 13th out of 14 racers. Well, all the old school coaches say, "the best training for racing is racing itself", and that is what I'm going to do this year.