At some point during or after the road race, my back got seriously bunged up. Maybe it was the flight I took after the tracks; maybe it was riding in the van for 9 bumpy miles with no cool down. I don’t know but Saturday afternoon, I was stooped at the waist and in some pain. I medicated myself with Naproxen and red wine. Gin may have been a better call but there was none in the house. I woke up Sunday a.m. and was walking like an old man in need of a walker. I shuffled down stairs at my sister-in-law Aggie’s home and tied to stretch.

“How do you feel this morning?”

“Like Hell. I need a trainer.”

“Like an athletic trainer?”

“No like what I hook my bike to. I have to see if I can sit on a bike and reach the handlebars.”

Aggie’s boyfriend Paul is a bike rider and he brought me a trainer within an hour. I hooked my bike up and you know what? It was painful and pathetic. The Lovely Kathy suggested I take about four more Aleve, lay on the floor and then she dug her elbows into the lumbar muscles.

The race would be about 3:00. It was 11:00 that I had my first back spasm. I decided that at noon, I would make the call whether or not to pull the plug. My 2 nephews, Kathy’s parents, Aggie and Paul’s 3 girls had made plans to see the race and hells bells, I didn’t want to appear to be a softie in front of them. Besides which, the airline had butt ***** me in exchange for flying my bike to New Jersey and I felt the need to at least make the effort to get my money’s worth out of that horrific exchange. Eventually, the heat, ice and elbow massage got me feeling decent enough to at least participate.

60 racers toed the line and as I surveyed the field I didn’t see but maybe two or three fatties. I saw guys with bulging biceps and tattoos and single digit body fat. I was concerned. The only guy I knew in the field was Chips Black all the way from San Luis Obispo. He arrived in a giant red pick up truck. He’s retired and lives with his wife Trish, apparently in that giant red truck and spends his time going to masters’ bike races all over the country.

I decided to see what exactly I was up against with this group, since tattoos and biceps don’t necessarily make a good bike racer. I attacked just after the second corner of the six corner course. The field strung out in pursuit and when I got caught I attacked again. At this point the pain in my legs and lungs was dwarfing the pain in my back so I continued. Every freakin’ time a group got off, I was there and then the group was brought back by these guys in Blue and Pink. The team was Global Locate and all of their guys looked like bike racers.

Chips Black off the right shoulder and the Pink and Blue Global Locate express in hot pursuit.
The race was strung out for the entire 18 laps. The riders were aggressive, able and in contrast to what I expected from Joizey racers, they weren’t rude. They were actually very nice, complimentary and didn’t have chips on their shoulders. I was expecting Andrew Dice Clay and was treated to Tom Hanks.

As I race all over the country, I am finding that the only masters riders who consistently have chips on their shoulders, burs under their saddles and egos larger than their accomplishments are in Southern California believe it or not – but that’s a story for another time.

Hells Bells, I- the most gregarious guy anyone would want to meet was the only guy to drop an F bomb in the entire race as I yelled at a Target Training rider who had just bridged across to an attack that I made. You know what he said? “Relax Mark.” Relax? Relax!? I was hypoxic trying to keep the pain in my legs greater than the pain in my lumbar and he’s telling me to relax. I would rather he told me to go **** myself but this was Joizey, not SoCal. So I relaxed until we were caught again and then I attacked for about the 10th time.

A group formed with all the teams present. 6 riders and we started to build a gap. One Global Locate guy, Dirk Cowley and two other guys. The other guys were weak. They sat on Dirk as he took a long pull down the head wind home stretch with 5 to go.

“Pull through!” I yelled. The dude pulled through slow and I knew that this break would get caught. I attacked after the slow dude pulled and it was now down to the Global Locate rider and me. Dirk exploded and the other two guys whimpered back to the peloton only 8 seconds back.

“You and me bud we got it, good gap. C’mon go harder”.

“No speak-a d’English”

“What?”

“Que?”

“Huh?”

“Que?”

“Oh ferchrissakes. So this is how it’s going to be?”

As it turns out the Global Locate dude was from the Dominican Republic and he was fast. His name was Edgar Pimentel and he wasn’t pulling my leg pretending not to know the native tongue of New Jersey. He beat me by 2 or three bike lengths in the end. His brother Juan and another team mate took 3rd and 4th according to Chips Black by a large amount. The team is strong. Chips took 8th and as he tells me, he did some defensive riding on my behalf – a selfless act for which I shall repay him at Superweek as he seeks the points title in the 40+ series.