Mentally Screwing Myself

I feel so used and dirty. I swear if I can figure out how to stay out of my own way, I might be dangerous on the bike someday. This weekend it was back to racing after a little break, and man it was fun again. Saturday, I rolled the Fed Center Circut Race, nice technical course, with a gradual climb on the back side. I felt descent, but didn't quite have the race snap in the legs. It was a good day getting back into things. Sunday was the Bannock St. Criterium, I had never raced this course, and everyone I talked to said it was a blast. Well, man it was a blast, 8turn figure 8 crit in down town Denver. It took a couple of laps to warm up, then the legs felt really good, spent the day sitting in the top 10, unfortunately 5 guys got off the front right from the gun, we reeled in 3, but the other two managed to get out of sight, game over when that happens. There was absolutely no cooperation going on in the field. At one point there was a break of 4 guys that got off the front, a team had a guy in the break, and was blocking for them. I managed to get around the rolling roadblock, and bridge up to the break. That pissed off the guys blocking for their team mate, and decided to chase me down and in doing so towed the field up to the break. Why do you chase down a single rider bridging up to a break, and in essence chase down your own guy? I attempted a leadout for Lance, for a Tokyo Joes prime, but he got nipped at the line. I managed a 2up prime later in the race. With four laps to go It seemed like a good time go get the pace up so there wouldn't be a mass sprint for 3rd (there were still 2 guys off the front and they weren't going to be caught). I towed the field around for 3/4's of a lap, and no one would pull through. So frustrated I sat up, and sat up hard. However by doing so I decreased my pace enough that about 30 guys rolled around me to the left. Why did I do that? I could have been sitting very nicely for the finish, instead I had to work my way back up into position the final 3 laps, and with 3 to go the guys weren't exactly going to slow down for me. I managed to work my way up to 19th for the finish. A lot of work during the race to mentally blow it in the end. I guess I needed to do that so I wouldn't make that mistake in the future. Looks like there are more lessons to be learned, cool.