Too sick to race? Do it anyway!

Ok, so I missed my TGIF posting.  Mea culpa.  I woke up Friday morning with a scratchy throat and some minor symptoms of my body fighting something ... the day progressed and I started feeling worse so I pretty much crashed the minute I got home from work.  I slept fitfully and when the boy woke me up to tell me he was heading out for his ride Saturday morning, I barely opened my eyes.  Then the sun started shining in the window, which was open so I heard the birds singing.  Cassius the cat climbed on top of me - he has a talent for parking himself right on my bladder in the mornings.  The trash truck came and created quite a cacophony.  Finally, I just gave up and decided I wasn't sick.  Put on my super-girl suit and headed out to enjoy the sunshine on my bike.  Passed the boy and his crew- they all looked appropriately surprised to see me flying down MacArthur - the last they heard, I was on my deathbed. The operative phrase here is "flying down MacArthur".  When it came to uphill, there was no flying to be done.  I might have set a record with my 16miles in an hour and 45mins.  I was useless when I got home.

Sunday morning, the alarm went off at 5:30 am - the boy came in to get me (he slept on the couch for fear or contracting whatever it was I was suffering from) and we debated on whether I should go race.  Of course I should, I'm constantly prodding women to show up if they want promoters to hold a race for them.  No, I shouldn't, I've been sick for two days.  But it's a double-points race - a championship race!  No, I have a lot planned for Monday.  With no definite answer spoken, the boy started making breakfast (he's good to me) and I slowly got moving.  Breakfast was yummy and I was in a better mood as I hit the road. 

Bonus #1 for being the first race of the day:  excellent parking.   I was parked at the top of the hill, not too far from registration and with a clear view of the dog-leg at the top of the course.  Sweet.  Later in the day I heard people begging to get in - one (unnamed) racer tried to use his pregnant wife as an excuse for race parking! 

Bonus #2 for being the first race of the day: No trainer needed, warm-up is on the closed course. 

Before I knew it, we were lined up and getting our instructions.  The whistle blew and ... I missed my pedal.  Eff.  (sorry CK - new pedals!).  Son-of-a .... ok, thankfully the other girls were feeling their way around the first turns so I could latch on and work my way back up to a better position. The course does get sort of a rhythm to it IF THE RIDERS ARE SMOOTH.  That last part is key, in case the caps lock didn't point that out.  I have often declared that I'd never do BikeJam again - every year someone gets hurt really badly and, lets face it, I have enough trouble without putting myself in a known-to-be-dangerous situation.  But, when the promoters decided to hold a masters field, I knew I had to support the effort.  As expected, the competitors were still competitors but not to the point of taking unnecessary risks.  There were a few -interesting-moves but for the most part, I had fun.  The "hill" to the finish wasn't as hard as I remembered.  I was never in any trouble and I even got to play a little.

After a couple of back-to-back prime laps, the bell rang for the final go-round.  Things got faster and I found myself in a fairly decent position as we approached the finish.  One of the Deep Blue girls jumped up to sprint about halfway up the hill - I hesitated a half-second, thinking - not yet!  I'm not ready yet!  Finally I jumped on the pedals - dare I say, I actually attempted to sprint.  I gained one position so I guess it wasn't completely pathetic.   End result was PODIUM for 35+ and, I think, somewhere around 6th overall. 

Photo credit to Super Dave for this shot:

The boy was coming up later in the day for his afternoon race.  In the meantime, I hung out at the Evo tent (Christine gets major props for setting it up - alone - before the early race), heckling the races with CK, Sue, Gwenn, Phil and Tania, and encountering the likes of Jared and Dave.  I won't even try to explain what was happening here.

Lindsay Bayer, fresh off of her Wilmington Grand Prix win, rolled in and I found out her secret to winning.  If you don't drive like this, folks, you are missing the boat.  Of course it came too late for me to use it in my race but - if you see me pulling up to a race in full bike- gear, watch out.  I'm winning that sh*t.

Nice to run into tons of people I haven't seen in years - including a Kelly club member that I used to train with and Billy, my favorite Baltimore cycling enthusiast. Finally, while watching the boy race, I decided that a smoothie would was in order.  Ah.  Near perfect day, wouldn't you say?

Oh - and remember how I said I was sick going into this?  Yeah.  Despite the smoothie, I lost my voice on my way home.  As in, can't speak above a whisper.  They say this could last a couple of days. 

The things we do to race our bikes.