Are you worried about hurting the bike or hurting yourself? I'm in a similar place as yourself, but I have a less expensive bike, a trek with sora shifters. I just put on vuelta corsa lite wheels to upgrade from my stock wheels as my first race is Saturday, and am probably going to be ultra conservative. I don't want to crash and get hurt or hurt my bike until I feel more comfortable in racing, and it may hurt my races but I'll still get experience. I would advise if you're concerned about falling, practice racing on the old bike because placing doesn't matter in cat 5. Don't draft too close or stay in a pack if you're not comfortable (common sense).