Driveway series 4/5 crit, 30 minutes. - First crash (DNF), I should have stayed home today

I've been sick with a cold all week, but was feeling a little better today. The weather was great and I decided to race. I was sucking from the start. Lack of energy, poor position/tactics, and sloppy in the turns. I got my head together about half way through and started doing a little better on my tactics and lines in the corners. I wasted some energy staying near the front coming up on the first prime (why are these people attacking?), but was mostly just hanging mid pack. I was making funny weezing/squeaking sounds every time I exhaled and felt really weak, clearly not a good idea to be racing today.

Fast forward to the beginning of the bell lap (tight corner right before a high speed section) and the guy to my front/left runs into me and we both go down. It looked like the guy in front of him was pushed wide and took out his front wheel, but it happened so fast I couldn't really tell. I was all the way outside and could have gone into the grass if it happened slower, but it happened in an instant. The only damage to the bike was bar tape and hood. Our bikes were tangled during the crash, so I was happy nothing major was screwed up. Only damage to me was a little road rash on elbow, shoulder, hip. A small hole in my bibs is probably the biggest bummer. I also got a massive calf cramp when I went down, feels like I tweaked something there.

Anyway, it was my first crash, I felt lucky coming away relatively unscathed. I think the crash was karma for some of my careless crappy riding earlier in the race.

On a positive note, I remembered to watch the lap cards this week and also learned a lesson about not burning energy on primes that I have no intent going after.