First race of the year

Well I had my first race a couple of weeks ago and almost my second race last weekend, but I will get to that in a second. The first races of the year are called the Banana Belt series. It is 3 races up in Gaston which is about 2.5 hours north of Eugene, not a bad drive but I have to get up at 5am to get there in time. Our race was 44 miles with about 700' of climbing and 700 meters of flat a lap. So you were either climbing or descending the whole time. There were 61 guys that started the race and we race in horrible weather conditions, but what do expect it is March in Oregon. But I kind of liked it, 45 and raining, we all looked like we road in a coal mine after the race but it was fun. So the race started out pretty stout, but I found my legs responding well to the climbs and felt comfortable, I even went for the $50 bonus on the start of the 3rd lap, in hindsight that was not a very good idea because the whole 3rd lap I was in the hurt locker, but survived. The start of the 4th lap was attack after attack and I was still feeling pretty good until the middle of the longest climb, about a 1.5miles, when I started to feel the twinges of cramps in my legs. This is never a good sign. It only happened when I stood up so I was hoping I could accelerate fast enough seated to keep up. This was not the case, on the way in there is a long climb, about a mile, with a little decent, then a short steep climb of about 900 meters. That is where I could no longer accelerate fast enough seated and tried to stand up, bad idea, my legs totally locked up. After cresting the top it is all down hill to the finish and I almost got back on the group after motor pacing a following car, but I could never get back on. In the end I finished 42, the last guy in the main group. I did not even realize we had dropped so many guys. Oh I forgot to mention we did the 44 miles in less than 2 hours. All in all I was happy with my performance and looked forward to going back the next weekend. Last weekend I drove back up to the Gaston to find the race course covered in 2" of snow, with more falling. There was a chance of that happening, so I should have just stayed in bed. But I took the chance and lost, but what are you going to do. Racers race and will take the chance to race, if only a small chance.