Never try anything new in a race...especially getting a flat

So I had a flat yesterday while out on a short ride which still put me 5-6 miles away from home. Fortunately I had a friend riding with me otherwise it would have been even worse. I do have one of those little CO2 cartridges and an extra tube with me so I figured, alright no big deal I'll just switch out and inflate and be on my way.

Unfortunately I had never used the CO2 cartridge thing a ma jig before and in trying to figure out its intricacies I snapped the little screw bit off the presta valve on the new tube. At the same time I managed to use up most of the CO2 in the cartridge without actually filling up the tire. Fortunately another bike store was close by (about 1.5miles) so my friend went off and picked me up yet another tube. After getting this tube on is when I found out I had used up too much CO2 and didn't have enough to inflate the new tube. We start walkin back towards the store until finally a friendly roadie offered some CO2 to pump up the tube so I could get to the store and use the pump.

Apparently I'm not very good at fixing flats/I didn't check the tube for what caused the flat and it was flat again by the time I got back home. Long story short...I now have three tubes, two with patches and one with a broken presta valve, and an empty CO2 canister that none of the CO2 actually went to filling a tube.

I'm just glad I figured out how to use the CO2 on a training ride even if it did cost me a couple tubes and a whole bunch of time rather than on race day.