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Daley Season Recap |
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Written by Sean Daley
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Thursday, 18 September 2008 |
Bovines, Landmine, and Domnarski Farm Season Finale
 So once again I have been slacking on the race reports, but my season has ended and I am finally getting some rest, so here I go. Bovines was a great time, Kyla missed this race, so I rode up to Keene solo. This was the last race before my wedding and I was feeling pretty good. There was a whole lot of climbing and the loop was huge, 12 miles or so. They started all the experts with the pros because there just weren’t that many riders there. So I sat in on the wheels of the pros until I couldn’t handle the pace. The climb was endless, it was literally a couple of miles, dirt double track, farm road stuff. It was fun, but I wasn’t climbing my best.
After the climb there was a lot of fresh single track that led to a flat fire road finish. I was able to catch a couple riders to move into third, then Noah, this really fast kid, from Vermont (I think), had a mechanical and I was in second. I was killing it on the second lap trying to make up any time I could on first, but Tim Daigneault is super strong and beat me by like six minutes. Tim was the only thing between me and complete victory multiple times this year, I like him though so it’s okay.
 So I took second at Bovines, I had a couple weeks off and a wedding to go to (mine). The wedding was awesome, it couldn’t have gone better, the weather was perfect, the dance floor was packed all night, and I got in 30 miles of intensity and 9 holes of golf that morning (yeah I started playing golf this year, it’s expensive and frustrating but fun now and then, like once or twice a year). So the wedding was great, we spent a couple days away and I didn’t miss any training.
The next race was the Hingham landmine. You would think this would be my race--me living right down the street and all—oh no I hate Wompatuck. it is a mosquito infested dump of a park (no offense to the “friends of Wompatuck”) I hate that place. The trails are covered in slippery sharp rocks, roots are ubiquitous, and quite frankly I can’t seem to go fast there. So the race was a mass start 25 miler. Colin Reuter and I were battling for the second place overall in the Root 66 series and he took the lead that day. He killed me by 17 minutes. I gave in after a while but he was riding really well. So he took the lead by 7 points. That meant the next race I would have to beat him by two places. I still managed to finish third at Landmine so it wasn’t a total wash.
 Domnarski Farm was a great race, wet single track, lots of double track, powerline climbs, and some crazy mud puddle sections. It was another nine mile a lap deal and I felt okay at the start so that’s good. I had been trying to convince Colin that I would let him win and we could split the extra money, but he insisted he would be fine. So when I crested the first hill with a good gap I yelled back: “ I would have split it with you man!” Then I was off, the rest of the race I rode with a smile thinking about how I was going to beat him by two spots because there were a few other strong riders there. Well I had a smile until the second lap when I came around a corner a mach III and wound up on my dome. It was the hardest I have crashed on a bike since I was twelve years old. When I was twelve I went down and was knocked out for a while. This felt like that except I wasn’t knocked out, I think. I jumped up and kept racing and finished with that smile back on my face until thirty seconds later when Colin came bombing down the path to finish right behind me. Where did this dude come from? I was like minutes ahead of him, I thought, when we were out on the endless powerlines? He had beat me in the points, sour grapes man.
So I said my goodbyes and went home. The season over and back to school, I thought. That was until Monday morning when I was sitting at my desk at Providence College and I felt like I had a world class hangover, and I don’t drink so that is weird. I was dizzy, nauseated, and not feeling well at all. I went over to the student health center and I must have looked rough because they called an ambulance. Oh yeah, the Fire Department came, the works, it was a big show. “Did you hit your head lately Mr. Daley?”
Oh Yeah I did hit my head, rather hard actually. After a cat scan, eight hours in the E.R. and really freighting Mrs. Daley they told me it seems to be from the fall and I may feel like this for a while. I guess it can last for a few days or even weeks. I wake up feeling rather “weird,” dizzy and stuff. Because I had cancer when I was younger they also have to rush me to Dana-Farber when ever I have anything “weird” going on, so I spent the next two days at “the Farber”--as we cancer victims call it--looking through my dome for tumors that could be causing the “dizziness.”
It gets better or worse, they found a spot in the brain, holy crap right? Yeah I was freaking out, or trying not to. But after a night of location old scans and test they decided that it was there before I had cancer and was not related. Phew. I guess you can have small densities in your brain and be okay. The great cancer scare of 2008 was over. Way to end the season, huh? The good news is that I got my upgrade to semi-pro for 2009. So with all the new category changes announce the other day it looks like I will be a back of the pack Pro next season. Sweet. I can’t wait.
See you at the races…
Sean
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