Wednesday, September 1, 2010

The Nationals

Today, 9/1/2010 is my 60th birthday. I always think of my late mother on this day for when I was born it was 103 degrees in San Jose (A/C had not yet been invented) and she labored, for sure. While it is not 103 degrees here in Frisco, Texas it is an unpleasant 95 with near 100% humidity.

Trish and I arrived 2 days ago without incident. Yesterday was terrible. Hot, humid, windy. The track was open for training. After 14 minutes of warming up on the track I heard the unmistakeable, sickening sound of air hissing out of my rear tire. I had punctured. Changing a tubular tire is not like changing a clincher, which takes me about 5 minutes on a bad day. No, a tubular requires a tire that has been pre-strtched and glued, a process taking days to a week. Then the tire is glued on to the wheel. I was lucky to have Mark Rodamaker here. He is a world champion track rider and kenw enough to bring 4 extra tires, ready to go. He replaced the tireand I was good to go. Getting dinner was a major fiasco, taking literally hours. I won't bore you with the details.

Today was a new day. Still ridiculously bad weather, but, what the hell, it's my birthday. Had a light breakfast at the hotel and headed to the track.

Had an excellent warmup for 1 1/4 hour then did my race. I had a wobbly start and because I started on the backstretch immediately hit the headwind. I passed my pursuit man at 6 laps and had to swing very high on the track as he was riding wide. That cost valuable time. I ended up with the national jersey and gold medal, winning overall by 0.065 seconds. That margin of victory I credit to the extra small skin suit John Elgart suggested I wear and lent me. Thank you, John.

A huge debt of gratitude goes to my coach Warren Geissert. He is involved and truly cares and is so much more than a coach. Thank you, Warren

Last and certainly not least the biggest thank you of all. It is reserved for my partner in life, my soul mate, my everything. Those who know Trish know that I "married up." I know it too. She is always there. I am a lucky man.

There is more racing to come later in the week. Stay tuned.

Thanks for reading.

Larry

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