The balance of things

Every contest has a winner. Likewise, every contest has (a) loser (sometimes several). All races have a first place finisher and a last place finisher. The last place finisher this weekend was me.
My excuse:
Westwood is notorious for being one big, long lap. The pal is itself about 10 miles, where a usual race course lap is closer to 5. At WW we were doing 3 laps for an ~30 mile race. The weather was perfect, cool, breezy, sunny, couldn’t be better. The trail was perfect as well, dry, not a single wet spot, if anything it was too dry (too dusty) in places. I usually go ride 1 lap of the course before the race to get a feel for it and refresh my memory of trouble spots. I didn’t really want to ride a whole 10mile lap to "warm up," but I did against my judgement. I knew I had made a mistake when I saw not another sole out there, but WW offers nowhere to turn in early as the course goes around the lake. If you turn off, you go into the lake. So by the time I finished pre-riding, I had been out nearly an hour and ridden about 10 miles and had about 10 minutes before I had to start er back up. Due to me cutting it fairly close, I forgot to take off my wedding ring, which pretty much has to come off to race MTB, as my grips and riding style cause it to dig into my finger and cause a) discomfort and b) me to mess w/ it constanly nearly sending into countless trees/gullies. Basically the cards weren't really good from the beginning.
My first and second laps were good, but at the beginning of the third, I knew it was a "just finish the f***ker" scenario. Anyone who came behind me I just pulled out of their way and let them by w/ no fight whatsoever. I knew I was done and didn’t want to hold up anyone else. SO I got beat by people that I usually beat, but I rode four laps of WW, and that’s serious business. Especially w/ three of them @ race pace (well, two and a half anyway).
So that was my weekend. And as for my title, well, someone has to be last. It’s the balance of things.
Big ups to my brother Evin who is now officially engaged to his long time girlfriend Lisa the librarian.