I hate missing races. And I hate making escuses

This weekend I have both. I missed the DINO MTB race at French Lick. And I have an excuse.
I have, can and will race w/ nagging injury. It's just part of it; even for a lower category half-assed armature such as myself. I have been feeling pretty okay for a pretty long time though. But race morning I woke up and my back was blown-out. I couldn't stand up straight or support myself. This has happened to me a few times over the passed several years. But never on a race day. My thought was 'I'll just give it some movement, some extra stretching and hopefully it comes around.' Well it really didn't. And the extra time stretching was eating into drive time. Finally I thought 'okay, I can mow down some cliff bars on the road, take some high caliber pain killers (naproxin, though my actual plan was to take naproxin prior to leaving, then ib profin prior to starting and hoping for the best) and probably get through it.' My final "test" for myself was simple: pick up my socks to put them on. My socks were sitting on a ~knee high table and I said to myself  "if you can pick up those socks w/out having to support yourself w/ your hands, you're good." I couldn't make it. I went and laid back down w/ a heat pad under my back.
It was a rough morning, but I felt like I should get on the bike if I could. My back has been blown out a time or two before and I have found that doing something active, but not overly strenuous kind of helps. Just having blood flowing and some general motion seems to help to keep things loose. I ended up riding for 2hrs and felt okay. My power wasn't great and I couldn't really stand up so I ride the hills very easy. I could feel that my left side was tighter (shorter, more contracted) than my right. I could feel it from mid-back down to my ankle. I really tired to focus on stretching out the left side as I pedaled and just get the ride in. I'm glad I did. I think I would have been (even more) upset w/ myself if I had just laid around all day.
So that's behind me now and I'm heading up to Chicago for a couple of days to hang w/ my brother and his kids.
Should be fun. I'll try to take some pics!