Tuesday, March 04, 2008

Tour de Hamster



The first race is in the books ladies and gents!! The weather was warm and windy. The riders were nervous and excited. Yet, we all did a great job and had fun. Now, I have a baseline to work from in order to improve. Okay, my improve list was really really long but that's okay. Everyone starts somewhere. A few highlights from the day.

Those cat 3 dudes are really fast.

Apparently there are enough men in Cat 5 to sort the groups into over 35 and under. That is not the case for the ladies. We cycled with girls who still had acne and braces. You have no idea how much that sucks.

When an 8 year old on a bike cheers you on while rounding a corner, you will indeed feel old and fat even if they were really sincere and cute.

When you get dropped by the peleton at the very start because you're screwing around with your clipless pedals, don't get an ego and think "I can catch up!" when you are fighting a 20 mph headwind. It ain't happening.

Gear selection and drafting matter. I was spinning like a hamster on some stretches while I screwed around with my gears. Apparently screwing around with gears and pedals was a big part of my race. I should have gotten over myself and drafted with my teammate Paula.

When your teammate is panting like a dog and her heartrate monitor is beeping like mad, she isn't trying to psych you out, she's reached critical mass but can't slow down for fear of not finishing. I had to explain this to Paula who thought I was a little nuts.

When your team captain/coach tells you to warm up until you are nice and sweaty and fairly winded, he means it. It shocked the hell out of my body to go from zero to 90rpm in 6 seconds flat. That might explain why I was panting and beeping all the way around the course.

FYI to the guys on my team, I WASN'T smiling while racing--I was BREATHING!!!! Also, I appreciate the tip on zipping up my jersey. I wasn't ignoring you when you told me that, my bike shorts were hung up on my seat so I was completely unable to sit down and was trying not to plant my face into the pavement before the race even began. This is a terrifying thing to someone who just pushed off towards the lineup. Rest assured, once I "unhung" my shorts, I was able to zip that jersey up.

Just sayin'!!!!
Till later, Alicia

2 comments:

mrspao said...

Well done! You did really well and I'm sure that you'll do even better next time :)

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