sharp left turn, then BAM!

Got no warming up in prior to the Cat 4/5 race, so I just decided to start in the back and try to hang on for as long as I could. Ended up being dropped, and decided since I got another race, that is more important to me, to just lay back and do a warm-up pace for the rest of the first lap and then take myself out.

Lined up for the second lap, was feeling very warmed up. Took off, and felt great, I was towards the front, going back and forth between 3rd and 6th wheel. On River Road, which was pretty flat, I was expecting several breaks, but everyone stayed together for the most part. Two Army guys attacked, but they didn't get far and was swallowed up quickly. Then we came up to a sharp left turn and then BAM! Two guys in front of me go down. I knew they were going down by the way the one guy wasn't keeping his line around the turn, so I went towards the outside more to follow this one guy's wheel, who was just to the right of the initial crash. He, for some reason, felt the need to slam on his brakes when I was expecting him to start sprinting up the ramp, and with very little time to crash I ran right into his rear wheel, taking both of us out. I got hit by a bike or two while on the ground, a few bikes went over top of me. I scrambled to get back up and get my bike up, the chain was off so I quickly fixed that. When I took off I noticed the rear wheel was rubbing the brake, so I got back off to fix that. Then my knee started to hurt. I hurt my knee last week playing basketball when I was tripped and hit it directly into the floor, so I just aggrevated the injury today in the crash. I stopped racing, and went back to the staging area, very lightly pedaling because I didn't want to injure my knee anymore.

I thought I was scared to death about racing tomorrow in the criterium, now I'm even MORE scared (can you get more scared than to death?) because I just crashed today. I'm just going to rest my knee tonight, and see how I feel in the morning.

In my brother's dorm at Ursinus now, waiting to go to his tennis match that is at 1:00. My dad came to watch both of my races and then we went to have a late breakfast and now we're here to see my brother's match. SHH, I'm on his computer without his knowing, I just felt the need to update my blog about the crash haha.