Warm ups . . . why?

What can I say about the 1st WCA race??? Well, I could say that it really is not that fun to do a cross race without doing a warm up and without pre-riding the course. I can't say that I would recommend that after experiencing it. Okay, so I'm a moron and I couldn't find the keys to unlock my bike from the roof rack until about 1 minute before the A women's race started. My warm up consisted of riding from the car to the start line. I thought I had a great 1/4 of a lap before my legs rebelled because of not having any warm up and I shot off the back of the group and could only see them as tiny specks in the distance. It wasn't exactly how I wanted the race to turn out but I survived and luckily I enjoy cross enough that not being able to warm up didn't send me into any kind of crazed panic. I think that I will keep an eye on my lock key in the future and that I will now truly understand the value of warming up. It can't be a bad day if a valuable lesson was learned, right??? Plus it was still better than not racing at all and I felt like I'm getting less and less freaked out by dismounting and spend less time obsessing about not hyper extending the knee, twisting the knee, etc. That's a good thing too. I do have a goal for the season though . . . I'd really like to not be DFL one of these days. Yeah sure, maybe I shouldn't have stuck with my plan to do the A races if I didn't want to be DFL every week but I am sticking with the plan so I guess I'll just have to work harder. Anyway, it's a worthy goal for sure and one that I can hopefully attain as the season goes on. Thanks for cheering as I needed it!!! Next stop Cincinnati!