things you can learn from an 8-year-old

If you raced, and you didn't win, you'd better have learned something. Yesterday I learned what my daughter does at every swim meet: when you're doing multiple heats, write your start time and race number on your arm with a sharpie. It'll save you from getting to the line three minutes late.

With that said, it was a time trial, and an ABR one at that, so they were pretty relaxed about bumping me down a few spots and sorting it all out at the finish line.

A race report on a time trial is about as exciting as a paint-drying report. So I'll try not to put you to sleep. I've never been to one of these before, but it's a different crowd. The mean age is about 50 (even the guys my age looked like dentists, or roadies who have the money to line up in a crit, but not the cajones). Damn near everyone has a five thousand dollar bike and many have a $200 helmet. All the more reason to show up on a single speed, in a skull-covered tri suit. Seriously, other than my bling CF saddle, I felt a little ghetto. My bullhorns are little bent (from the accident that bought that saddle :), and my unorthodox brake lever mounts (one in the drops, one on the flats) meant the officials had to give my bike an extra look-over.

Imperceptible wind, 60 degrees...it doesn't get much better, especially when the wind can ruin a singlespeeder's day. I was killing it, holding it at 24+ mph for most of the first half, hitting 29ish on the downhills and keeping pretty steady on the mild climbs. I caught my "minute man," pretty fast, then before the turnaround, I caught my 7 and 10 minute men too. Halfway into the 30k, I hammered up the hill, pulled a nose wheelie stop at the cone, a u-turn, and hammered back down. I had 4-5 minute men laid out in front of me. I caught 3 of them immediately. There must have been a mild tailwind, because I was having no trouble holding it at 25-26 mph, and I had so many rabbits to chase. My 50 minute target time was totally in the bag, and my "daydream" time of 45 minutes looked possible after all.

That was the high point of the day.

I got a flat. I rode on it for over three miles. Sitting way back on the saddle, fingertips on the flats of my bar, I was still able to do 18-20 mph. A couple of race marshals blasting Nirvana at one of the corners helped me out (I'm pretty sure it was Sammy Hagar and his roadie wife, who, I found out later, flashed one of the competitors as he was sailing through the corner!) I was signed up for two heats, so I was hoping to get back and swap the tube. I tried to pump it up but I'd trashed it and it wouldn't hold, so Hagar let me borrow his wheel.

I tried to relax a bit on the ride in, since I'd put my all into the first heat...now I was having to save some for the second try. However, I started to watch the numbers of the riders starting out, and I realized it was coming up on my start time...so I put myself into the red zone just to get back for heat two!

I made it with three minutes to spare. Rip off one number, juice up, drain a gu, and line up...only to discover I should've gone three minutes ago! The judges were pretty cool about it, and let me start anyway.

So I did heat two on a heavy, not-so-aero wheel, and no speedometer. I fought as hard as I could, but I was clearly off from my first heat. I grabbed a few minute men, but unlike my first heat, got caught by a couple who started behind me.

There was one in particular who was in the distance for about half the race. I'd gain a couple hundred yards on him, then lose them back. Virtually everyone had "proper" trial bars and gears, many had those "Alien vs. Predator" helmets. Usually I can trail a bike for a few seconds and guess about whether I can catch, pass, or hang on to their speed, but it's hard to tell when everyone's in their submarine position with a smooth cadence.

So I finally start to soak up the gap on this one guy, and I think, "This sucks, I've spent $30 on gas, $45 on racing, I was on fire, and now I'm toast. This is my race. I.am.going.to.beat.that.guy." (I knew that he started minutes ahead of me, and technically, I had already made up my ground, but I wanted to cross the line ahead of him.)

So I kept at it, and this Winston Churchill quote popped into my head: "Never, never, never give up." I used to see that quote on a billboard, going to see my mother in Detroit, when she was in her final months of treatment. I remembered that one year ago this weekend, I surprised her by showing up on her birthday, a birthday that we all knew would likely be her last. That REALLY got me going. And, like I thought so many times in my marathon training last summer, "this ain't SHIT compared to cancer treatment."

So I damn-near-redlined and recovered, over and over, and reeled him in. When I passed him, I saw that he had no idea I was there, and I could also see that he was probably cooked. I thought he might be able to shift and bear down and get me, so I just laid it all out hard. I knew the finish was nearby, and I thought I saw it in the distance.

I was busy trying to figure out if I could hammer all the way to those orange cones a half mile away, when to my surprise, I passed the finish line! I pulled over to discover he was 3-5 seconds behind me and as he rolled by, he yelled "DAMN!" ...and not in a nice way, in a "if I had a wall to punch through, I would" kind of way. He continued his outburst coasting back to the lot...I cut back to the finish table to make sure they had my proper start time and the clock man said "I think you made that guy a little mad. He has a $5,000 bike and he couldn't catch you."

"Then my work here is done." (Grin)

After all was said and done, I finished in 53:24 on heat one, and 53:09 on heat two. Had I stayed on form, I coulda woulda shoulda medaled in my division in 4/5th place, with a time in the 46s. What did I learn? That with a $5-10,000 bike, I could rack up wins and medals well into my golden years. That riding 700x20s is a bit of a gamble, when even a little stone can give you a pinch flat. Though, I may have to take that risk again and do another TT soon. Maybe I can piss off someone else at the line.

UPDATE: I'm not sure why I thought someone did it in 27 minutes, maybe there was a sheet posted with overall records or something. The fastest time of the day was 42:24, so I wasn't too far off, given what happened. I ended up 18th in Cat 4...out of 21; lame. But I cracked the top ten in Masters' 30+ (ok there were only 11 in the field). Also lame.