Initially, I thought I was in the clear, having missed the August 1st sign-up deadline...but last Monday, the Emerald Velo team that hosted the State Time Trial Champs, opened up the entry for a few more days, and I found myself out of excuses. So, I signed up. And come Sunday morning, after a dose of Olympics and latté, I donned my blue and green team kit, pumped up the tubes on the race wheels, grabbed Heather's aero helmet (mine is sadly inoperable... awaiting duct tape), and used the ten miles to the start as a warm-up.
But first, I had to run the gauntlet. I've mentioned before that my commute to town goes through Wilammette and Crystal Lake Parks. Well, this particular morning, the parks were playing host to the largest youth soccer tournament in the state. And my 8:45 am warm-up along the bike path that bisects the parks coincided exactly with the arrival of the tourney attendees, resulting in a frogger-like procession of people walking in my direction, taking up the entire bike path of course. I was nice. I proceeded with caution, keeping it below 10 mph and yelling out "biker". I wonder that I had to yell warning to people walking toward me, supposedly looking in my direction. But it was amazing how many near misses and not-so-near-not-exactly-misses I had. So, I apologize to the teen-age girl that I buzzed who would do well to focus less on talking on her phone (maybe we should make it illegal to walk and talk on the phone at the same time!) and her mom who may have almost dropped the Starbucks in her attempt to confront me (news flash: I was on a bike... quick getaway). And I do not apologize to the man that I almost hit head-on who found his feet way more interesting that anything around. Maybe his feet are really just that good-looking. I didn't stop to find out.
Eventually, I cleared the park, and it was smooth sailing to the start of the bike race in Peoria, OR. Smooth sailing, except for the fact that I was running late, and therefore, arrived a scant eight minutes and 40 seconds before my start time... plenty of time! I was already warmed up and everything.
The race itself was pretty uneventful. I caught and passed two women in my category almost immediately. I leap-frogged with a Poplolly a couple of times, and after conserving a little during the first half, I turned and burned at the halfway turn-around, jumping up to 25 mph and trying to maintain that for as long as I could. No huge amount of wind, plenty of bright sunshine, a limited number of cars, and a few riders passing and getting passed. Even me - I was passed 200m before the finish line, but it was by a woman whom I had started 30 seconds behind of... so I let her go since I was still ahead (and dead-tired).
As a poser triathlete, I managed to eek out a 2nd place finish among the cyclisma. The top three were all really close. And I've always liked the saying "if you can't win, make the person in front of you set the record". Well, the winner set the Cat 4 women's state record (and incidentally, so did I but, no records for 2nd). My team also did spectacularly, successfully getting their names in the record books with state records and medal finishes. Very nice!
Oh, and I completely avoided the park and the bike path on the way home.
very nice! I see a whole new athletic career on the horizon.... as for those people on the bike path, you just need to remind then it's a BIKE path before you ram 'em.
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