Courant, I've come very late in to cycling however in a lot of ways I don't regret spending my teenage/early 20's doing precisely as you and your captain did.

Young athletes have it very tough in that respect. Remembering to go out and live a little is incredibly important. As amazing as cycling is, it's nowhere near as cool as the other thing called 'life'!

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Baum Ristretto, Baum Mondrian Corretto & the '89 Merckx! | "If you could eat it in one sitting, hold your line." | twitter.com/Tinea_Pedis

"That's bike racing"
This is not a sport where the strongest rider or the smartest rider wins every time (Often they do when things go right). Shit happens, as long as you're not hurt, go out and do it again. Maybe you'll get lucky. All you can do is put yourself in the best position with the best fitness that you can so that if an opportunity arises you can take advantage of it.
If you think this is your last possible year of competitive racing, you're wrong. Amateur racing is a life-long thing. Even the pro's are competitive until their 40's.

Sh1t does happen though, trained like a mad man last winter and v.early season for the national student TT champs which are early april, so no real chance to build form through racing before hand. If you're lucky 4 weeks of the season prior to the races.
1st race 10 mile TT, Got unlucky with the weather turning and ruining my chances. 2nd race 25mile TT raging thunderstorm for everybody, so atl east that was fair, warmed up well felt strong wanting to get my own back on the weather. Rolled over to the start got 100m from the start line only to feel my front tub puncture. No time to get a spare and get back to the start for my start time. DNS see you next year. Its tough and you have to have a sense of humour about it other wise you;ll drive yourself mad! Was so gutted i even felt it was necessary to apologise to my coach for wasting his time.
Luckily hes a good bloke, and turned up at my house the next week and dragged me out to two more local races to make me get back out, race and get over it. I find that is the best thing to do really, get out and get into the racing again, and maybe chat to someone who races but was separate from the incident in question, as they'll probably be quite a good at giving you some perspective again.

I hope you get back into the racing and have some better experiences soon!

rule #5 son

The simple answer is go race again the next weekend. I have a friend that rides with us who does not have a large engine, but he has the desire to do better and wants to at least find out what he is good at. My advice to him is to go out and try things in the races, sooner or later you figure out what works, if it does not work this weekend, there is always another race.

Now at a level where you may be getting paid to race, results mean a lot more, since it is your livelyhood.

HUMP

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Why are the best things in life always the ones you start last?

You swallow a cup of concrete and harden up because the the chances of the same thing happening again is very high.

Just make sure you learnt something from it and try not to put yourself in that predicament again.

Foo

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So long as you have tried your best, then you should have no regrets!

Crashes and sickness suck plain and simple. You can partially control one but not the other.

In that race did you guys have a plan? One thing for sure if you are organized is stay out of the death zone. Map the route and either plan to be in the front helping control the pace or the back out of trouble. No man's land in the peloton is an expensive lesson waiting to happen.

You never fail. You only learn lessons. keep pedaling!

i've come to learn.....NEVER HAVE A PLAN. it never pans out and you become dissapointed lol