The race report will have to come later.  I’m just too tired to sit down and type it out right now.  So, for now, we’ll just let the pictures tell the story.

The number for my first Category 4 race

Not sure why it wasn’t a 4** number.  This is definitely a number that will go in my collection. It represents my first Category 4 race.

My pinkie survived!

I made a special glove to keep my left pinkie finger attached to my ring finger.  It worked perfectly.  The road was rough and when I was warming up before the race I didn’t use the glove.  The vibrations hurt.  With the glove, I didn’t feel a bit of pain!

My first "paycheck" from racing.

I finished in the money and got a $20 check.  Let’s see… registration: $25 + online registration fee: $1.98 – race winnings = $6.98.  Hmmmm, I guess I would have to win in order to cover the expense of the race.  Of course, I say that tongue in cheek.  I’m not racing for the money.

I mentioned that last week wasn’t a great one for me. By Friday evening I was pretty bushed. I was down physically, mentally, and emotionally. Didn’t get in a ride Friday — not on the road or on the trainer. I almost called off going to the race.

I didn’t…

Photo by David Hicks
…I decided to give it a go.

If you want to read about the race, go on over to the GreenvilleOnline.com cycling blog. This is the story behind the story. It is more wild than the race!

The day started with me over sleeping. Not by much, but I got a little bit of a late start. However, I had still budgeted in an hour to get to the race. Turns out that I needed it!

I’ve been having some problems with my contacts and today they were really bothering me. I thought they would clear up and wouldn’t be a problem. Yet as I got down the road I found they weren’t any better.

Needless to say, this made it hard to read the road signs and I missed the turn onto River Falls Road (my wife had the GPS in the car for coming up later). It was so frustrating fighting with my contacts and trying to see the signs. Turns out I had my contacts switched!

I called the beautiful redhead and she was already leaving. She turned around so she would get on the Internet and give me directions. We started working me back to the the right location but my phone kept going in and out of service. Now I was fighting contacts, cell coverage, and the clock!

I made it with about 30 minutes to spare. Thankfully, my brother-in-law was there (a neat surprise to have him there – he took some great pictures) and he helped me get my bike serviced and switch my number to the other side of my back.

I met up with my cycling buddy Barry and we even had a few minutes to warm-up. Then we headed into the start area when the call was made. Amazingly, by this time I was feeling pretty relaxed. I was so glad that I made it that it made all the frustrations of the morning go away and I didn’t think as all of the last week.

It was time to ride.

Turns out I made yet another personal best finish. My first race ever was a DNF because of a crash. My second race was for 13th. The third race ended up being a 7th place finish. Today, in my fourth race, I got a 3rd place finish. Maybe the next one will be a win

I also had my first challenge of my “racing career.” I had several people congratulating me — by the way, my mother-in-law and father-in-law showed up as well along with the beautiful redhead and the Things (they drove up right before the start) — on my third place finish. Then the finishes were posted.

I wasn’t on the list. So I went to find out what was up. It was kind of cool because I got to go up in the officials’ wagon and see the way they do the scoring. It is basically a video camera and a recorder. They record the riders coming by and then go frame by frame to note their numbers.

Well, when I came by, it was obvious why they got the wrong guy in third place. My number was moving because I was wearing a looser fitting cold weather jersey. It caused the number to bow up. My 573 really did look like a 613.

They were very quick to make the adjustment and I got my little trophy. It took me back to my days in Little League when my team won the area championship. It really was great to have a little something nice happen for me.