Got out of bed yesterday morning, and I have to admit, I did not feel like racing. The legs felt fine and I had lots of energy, I just couldn't summon up the motivation to fling it all out there and endure the pain. I got out there and after a couple of pre-laps on the course and a decent warm-up, I was feeling better about my decision to race. When the gun went off and we started around the slippery morass of Candlestick, my needle definitely hit the happiness quotient, though the pain was running full stick as well. But on those occasions where I needed to dig deep to hold a wheel or bridge up, I could get there and tolerate. And then on the third lap I hit one of those sidewalks and I tore the tire off the front rim. (Note: still not running the tubulars so I was old schooling it on the tubular/clinchers) Anyway, I had to run about a half a lap at which point everyone seemingly went by me as I tried to get to my back up bike. And when I got there I hesitated just briefly thinking, "fuckit...I'm out." But as I looked at that perfectly good back up bike, I thought of the wifeage and what her reaction to a DNF would be and I grabbed it and took off. It took me two laps to find my legs again at which point I was able to make my way past a few guys on the last lap to salvage 25th. And suddenly I feel as if somebody hit the reset button. Project Johnny suffered a bit of a hiccup the past week or so, but now I've got renewed motivation to get back up there and race. There's a little bit of time yet to wring out some more speed. Time to get cracking. Hope you are well.

Johnny GoFast