My birthday was on Friday. Since I had bike races both today and tomorrow, we went out on Thursday night for it. I'm glad that I have accomodating friends, especially the non-cyclist ones, as no one seemed to mind the late-notice Thursday outing. It probably helps that most of us are grad students. We had a night out in Ballard, pizza and beers basically, and I barely made it until midnight, which was my goal as it was then "officially" my birthday. It was really great to go out with some close friends and just chill, nothing crazy at all. I will highly recommend Madame K's in Ballard for pizza. They had some great toppings, and I loved their thin crust (I don't personally like thick crusts, so I didn't try it). Anyway, it was a good evening, though I'm very glad we went out then instead of last night, or I would have felt like death today.
I raced Volunteer Park, and I actually achieved my goal of finishing an open (cats 1/2/3) women's race with the field. It was the first time that I didn't get lapped at one of these races, and I was very happy to see that my fitness is not all that bad. I think that I got 14th out of 18 finishers (22 started). It's not super-great, but I'll take it over getting last from being lapped. I think I was partially fueled by strong motivation to not be embarassed in front of my non-cyclist friends, as quite a few were there to watch.
The race started from the gun, and there was a pretty awful looking crash that happened just a couple lengths in front of me. Amara (of wheelsinfocus.com fame) got sent into a bush right next to her, and Annette (old teammate on Ti, ended up with a dislocated shoulder) went down, along Chris from Byrne. I managed to avoid it, though it shook me up for about a lap. It was interesting: this year's VP versus last year. I remember being pretty nervous on the descend (fast and fairly steep for a crit), but this year I knew I had to hang on as much as possible, and it didn't really phase me. I definitely agree with Jen, though, that spinning up the hill would have helped. I just pushed it up everytime, and I didn't have anything left on the false flat. But, seriously, I'm very happy to actually have stayed with the group the whole time. I can only build up from there, as long as I keep training. Here's hoping that tomorrow's race goes okay: it's only cat 3s, and most of the really strong ones were out there today, so maybe it won't blow me away.
Speaking of tomorrow, I think it might just be me, but I have to refer to it as "Boat Street," still. Calling it the "Brad Lewis Memorial" is just a little too difficult to do. I'm sure I confuse some of the newer racers in the community (and people in general, it seems), but I don't know, it's just a weird, personal thing. It's one of my favorite crits, and I can't deny that. But I was working the corner of Pacific St. and Brooklyn two years ago during the 1-2 race, and I remember looking over and just seeing Brad fall. I had no idea what to do, as people were still racing, and I was still standing there when I saw the paramedics leading Emily away from the race. I had no idea what had happened until later that night. And I still have a tough time walking down Brooklyn and will almost always go another route, if I'm trying to get to Oceanography, Agua Verde, or Recycled Cycles. I know that a lot of people have the "this is what he said to me earlier that day," but I don't. All I remember was that I was bitching about how out of shape I felt, as my annoying, middle-of-the-pack cat 4 self. I don't really know why this all adds up to me being unable to call the race by it's new name, but I just can't.
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