Monday, July 27, 2009

Finally a "W"

As seen in an earlier post, i was really good at 4th place in my races.
I have been watching the Tour  lately and i am glad Megan talked me into the DVR, because being able to cut a 4 hour stage down to 60 minutes is really, really nice. Cavandish had 6 sprint wins with some odd victory celebrations/salutes.
Contador gave his signature pistol shot when he won his mountain top victory. 

It got me to thinking about what kind of salute i would do if i ever won a race. I was thinking of keeping a picture of my kids in my back pocket that i could pull out and kiss and then hold to the sky as i crossed the line, or maybe a pacifier that i could put in my mouth as i victoriously came across the finish line as a shout out to my youngest daughter. Unfortunately, those have already been done.
The other problem is that i never actually win races, so it would look weird that i show up to every race with a pacifier in my jersey pocket but never actually pull it out. It looks kind of lame if you do an lavish victory salute when you come across the line in 4th place.

When i went online to register for saturdays race on thursday night, there were only 7 guys registered in the Cat 3's. After my sound whooping last weekend by the Pros when they combined the fields, i wasn't in the mood for another 80 mile training ride. I decided that since it was a masters state championship race, i would race in my masters category which had
 almost 50 guys. 
I had a few teammates in my group and they helped keep the fast guys in check throughout the race. In the end, it came down to an uphill bunch sprint. I came around the wheel of the guy in front of me half way up the 0.75 mile finishing climb. I was thinking this was way to early and i was surely going to fade. I kept waiting and waiting for someone to come around me but nobody ever did. 
I was seeing stars at the line and forgot all about a victory salute.
 I have been working on a salute that has me unclip from both pedals and i lay on my saddle on my stomach and pretend that i am superman, but it is sort of tough with an uphill finish because you lose your momentum when you stop pedaling really quickly and then tip over.
There were no podium girls to give me kisses, which i guess is okay, because i would have felt like i was cheating on my Megan.
Actually there was no podium at all. Just an awkward guy giving out state champion medals from of the side of his minivan.

1 comment:

matt b. said...

Do those extra hands in the trophy girl pic belong to Megan? was she trying to pull you away?
they sure look like manhands though.