Monsters of the Midway

Race #20
5/16/09

pack finish.

I’m really glad Vanessa is doing fine and comfortably recovering at home. Speedy recovery Vanessa!

I wish I could have raced with the 4s, after winning the cat 5s race last year I wanted to go for a win. Such is life.

The course was different from last year. With the finish on the south side of the midway they added huge chunk of distance coming out of the final corner. Add a stiff tailwind and that complicates your finish. Do you go early and risk the fadeout, or wait till the last 50 and put all your money on your jump? Unfortunately, I was only able to race an open category race and I knew that my cat 4 ass wouldn’t be in contention. So hanging on would be my first goal.

The race went well. It was faster than a typical 4s race, but it was not as painful as I thought it would be—especially once the break was let go. If that hadn’t happened then we would have had some more dramatics in varying the pace. Once the break was established and the rhythm hadn't made my legs fall off, I even felt pretty good about competing with guys stronger than me.

So, 30 min and we’re done. The break finished ~40 seconds ahead of us.

It was really great to see so many Spidermonkeys show up. See, that is why we have the best team in Chicago. Our teammates show up even though many don’t race, or won’t until late in the day for the 5s. That is really cool.

After a while of hanging out it was off to my visit with my family on the northwest side—into a headwind from the northwest for 1.5 hrs, the whole fucking way. Hell, that ride was a bigger pain than the race.