Upon
arriving at James’, I saw that his garage door was open and a ton of gear was
sitting on the concrete floor waiting to be loaded up. Upon looking over the various items, I asked
myself, “How long are we planning on staying at the race site, the entire
weekend?!?” There were chairs, one of
those fold out canopies, a trainer, a couple of boxes of stuff, and a few items
I’m forgetting. Add these things to the
trainer I borrowed (thanks Todd Hoeder), the two disc wheels I brought (thanks
Carlos, and, again, Todd), and my stuff, we were packed to the gills. After we racked James bike and headed out of
his neighborhood, he told me that we had to stop off to get another trainer for
Joel to borrow. It was at this point
that I informed him that we needed to stop for gas too. Already being 20 min behind schedule and then
having to make two more stops makes for heightened nervousness….especially on
race day! After filling up the tank, we
ended up meeting Lisa Keller in the parking lot of a hotel en route out of town
and grabbed her trainer. Finally, we
were off to the race!
At this
point, James called our two other teammates, Ben Ghererardi and Joel Gerber, to
tell them to just head out of our rendezvous point and that we’d catch up to
them on the freeway. Ben dropped a bomb
on us that would have a rippling effect to the day. He was sick.
He was so sick, in fact, that he had trouble getting out the door. The problem was that the TTT rules say that
we MUST start 4 people, even if one pulls over 5 feet after the start line,
they must start. Ouch, running 20
minutes behind and now we are a man down.
James and I call an audible and decide to give George Galindo a call to
see if he could make the 1 ½ hour drive to AZ City in time to fill in for
Ben. Dude was a rock star and quickly
accepted the challenge.
Somewhere
around 60 miles out of town, I notice James' bike acting strangely on the bike
rack and we decide to pull over at a rest stop.
Good thing we did, as his bike shifted off of the cups/straps that were
holding it in place by the windy conditions slamming into his disc wheel. The only thing holding his bike into placed
were the extra bungee cords we used to help secure everything. I ran into the bathroom to relieve a nervous
stomach while James took off the disc and re-secured everything. So far, the morning was in total chaos.
We finally
roll into the staging area of the event and pull up next to Ben and Joel. We get out set up our trainers and head over
to registration. It was here that we
realized George wouldn’t be able to race for us for two reasons, 1) He needed
an annual cycling license to qualify for any state titles and they weren't selling them and 2) There wasn’t
enough time for him to make it. James
had the unfortunate task of filling him in when he was already half way
there. After some jostling around back
at home base, I was able to get on the trainer and started to warm up. I could hear the announcer calling out team
numbers to the start line…he was already on 205. We were 212, so if teams were going off 2
minutes apart, that means we only had about 14 minutes left before it was our
turn. This was definitely not enough
time for me to warm-up. More chaos! When I heard team 210 called to the start, I
quickly took my bike off the trainer, put on the rear disc, jammed a gel,
donned my helmet, and took a quick 100 yard spin to check everything out before
rolling up to the start. It was our turn
now.
5-4-3-2-1
BEEP! Off we go! Joel was first, James was second, I was
third, and Ben was fourth. Ben rolls
across the start and peels off, he’s done for the day. Immediately, Joel and James put the hammer
down and I try to match. For some
reason, my HR went from 100 to seemingly 185 in a matter of 50 feet and I
really had to work to match the power put forth by my teammates. About 2 minutes later and it was my turn up
front. I couldn’t match the speed we
wanted to average and quickly fell back into the pace line. Something was wrong, but what was it? Again, I have a hard time keeping up with
Joel and James. In fact, James gaps me
by at least 30 feet and Joel has to come from behind and rotate in front of
me. This yo-yoing goes on for about
8k. I keep yelling at them to just KEEP
GOING as I try to assess what is happening.
Finally, James comes around me and tells me that my disc is on crooked
and is rubbing on my frame. Not an
occasional rub every revolution, but a constant rub….it was like I was racing
with my brakes on. We had no choice to
pull over and fix the problem before going on.
Remember when I said that losing Ben would have a ripple effect? This was one of those ripples. You see, if he was still with us, those 3
could have dropped me and continued on with the minimum 3 required to finish. After fixing the problem, we were off
again. This time, I was STRONG! We were flying and making up precious
time. That was, until, Joel experienced
what nobody wants to experience on race day….sub-par results. Everybody has ‘em, but when it hits you on
race day, it definitely stinks, especially if you have teammates counting on
you. Joel drifted further and further
back before James and I had to sit up and come to about a 15mph crawl for him
to catch back on. Joel spent most of the
rest of the race sitting third wheel with an occasional herculean effort up
front for a few seconds (quit is not in the dude’s vocabulary). James and I were taking 2+ minute pulls up
front with about 80 – 85% effort levels in the hope that Joel could stay on
until the finish. Ultimately, he did and
we were able to cross the finish line with the required amount of racers to
stop the clock.
Since Ben
was claiming that he had Malaria and Joel was his driver, they immediately
packed up and took off. Thinking that we
got dead last, James and I were in no real hurry to head over to the
podium/awards area. We started to put
stuff away, take in some fluids, and cool down a bit before I decided that I
was going to go see if we even get the obligatory participation medals that
come with practically every race (we didn’t).
Once there, however, I ended up feasting on some supplied Fig Newtons,
Vitamin Water, and some chocolate chip cookies.
I was determined to get something for my entry fee! That’s when the awards ceremony started and
they called the teams from our division to come on up. Only one team was standing there when they
made a “last call” I decided to double
check the standings to see where, exactly, we stood when I discovered that we
took 3rd!!!! I notified the
announcer that I had to go get James and that I’d be right back. I ran back to the truck and told James the
good news. He indicated that he wasn’t
really interested and that I should get back there and represent ONE
Multisport, so that’s just what I did.
For me, it’s
a BIG deal to stand on an awards podium, ANY awards podium, so I relished every
second with a grin from ear to ear! A
bronze medal to go with our 3rd place finish is a satisfying end to
an otherwise chaotic race day, dontcha think?!?
Me and James warming up:
Listening to "Scooter" on my iPod while warming up. Hey, Ben Gherardi, any idea who put on my race number?!?
Even though he wasn't physically able to compete, Ben was able to snap this pic of us crossing the finish line.
Me representing ONE Multisport on the podium (this is actually a still shot from a quick video):
Proudly wearing the bronze medals for 3rd place in the state in our division:
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