Chris Newhouse Memorial Criterium (Ninigret) Cat 4

by Michael McKittrick

I woke up before my 7:30 alarm feeling good.  Ate a solid breakfast, packed the car and was on the road by 8:30 for a noon race. 

I drank green tea all the way down.  I felt a little cold coming on.  I wondered if I should take it easy in the race and cancel my plans to do Wells the next day. 

I got to the race, registered and changed.  I had over an hour to warm up.  I did my warm up on the street and was feeling really strong.  It was one of those days when everything seemed right.  My bike felt good, my legs loose and strong.  I did a few sprints, the hard efforts felt...effortless.  I rethought my plan to just sit in.  I was optimistic about my chances to have a successful race, even though I had no teammates in the race.  I was also thinking about how I wanted to redeem myself after getting my lungs torn out at Tufts last weekend.

I warmed up for an hour.  I showed up to the starting line 10 minutes early, sweating and ready to sprint off of the line.  I was in the second row in the line up because I had a little trouble with my left pedal when we were called to the line. 

Upon rolling out and trying to sprint, my left cleat popped out of the pedal (1st time ever).  I took my time and tried to get it back in.  I failed.  It kept popping out. It wasn't like I was hitting it on the wrong side, it just failed to fully engage.  It didn't click in, even though my foot seemed to be in the correct position.   

I decided to just sit in and play with the pedal when there were rests in the pace.  

My cleat kept popping out.  I kept putting it back in.  I held on for 3 laps like this.  Physically, I felt good.  It was no problem for me to sit in even though my foot was popping out every 1/4 mile.  I was concious of the fact that when it popped out, I would jerk around, I felt that I was a potential hazard in the peleton.  I decided that I should take a free lap adn try to fix it.  I thought that my pedal was messed up, so I put my head down and pushed to the front of the pack on the 3rd lap.  I was near the front ofthe peleton on crossing the finish line.  I pulled over to try to fix the pedal during my free lap.  I intended to fix the pedal and jump in near the front of the peleton.  I started yelling to the bystanders for a multi tool and a masters rider ran for one.  I inspected the pedal and could find nothing wrong.  I was winded, high on caffiene, sugar and adreneline.  In short, I was unable to think straight.  Finally a guy asked, "is the cleat alright?" It wasn't.  It had broken.  Someone suggested strapping my foot to the pedal.  I just stormed off, threw the bike on the car and drove away.  They rang the halfway bell as I drove out of the parking lot.  What a waste.  You should check your cleats.