That wishbone from Friday night.

I think my race at NoHo really started with friday night. We joined the folks from my wife's work at a Rhode Island institution: Wright's Farm Restaurant. It was an interesting experience. The chicken was actually pretty damn good. The fries, and pasta and salad, not so much. I even managed to have a little restraint, finishing the remainder of the salad instead of the chicken or pasta, and I didn't leave feeling bloated or too full. A remarkable achievement for being my Father's son.

But one thing magical happened there. I was dissecting a chicken quarter (a slab of breast meat and bones) when a little wishbone appeared. Woa. Cool. So I turned to my oldest daughter who was sitting next to me and said, make a wish. We pulled on it and i got the big half. She asked what I wished for. And i hesitated to say it because, well you know, wishes are supposed to be kept secret. Well, I first said that but then realized, why not share the wish?

My wish? Simply: To be top 50 at NoHo on saturday. With 85 people pre-registered, me sitting in 57th in the race predictor with a good half dozen people or more people who are much faster than me listed as 'unknowns' a top 50 would be a huge achievement.

NoHo looked to be a stronger field than Providence, and even a bigger field than Gloucester (I'm referring to specifically the 1.2.3 35+ race). A lot of fast guys were making the trip. Granted a handful didn't make it, some didn't pre-reg due to illness, some didn't show for other reasons (Milliman, McCormack). But still for me to break into the top 50 would mean having a great race.

It would mean a great race for me personally, it would mean a steady improvement. Last year I showed up there with my new tubulars, and with strep throat. The rear tubular was destroyed on the first lap and I wound up getting lapped by everyone. It wasn't a good race by any means. At all. It was bad. I had registered for both days and didn't come back on Sunday. NoHo wasn't on my original calendar. But I didn't want to have a completely empty weekend and racing just on Saturday at Canton was a nice change. So I registered on Tuesday or Wednesday as number 71 (i think, my race number was 178). And most of the people who registered after me (besides Michael Cole) had verge points like G-Ride. Meaning getting a top 50 meant battling from the very very very very end of the field from the gun to hopefully beat 30+ people.

Certainly Possible, but my previous good finishes at PVD were from a first or second row behind the verge point holders. Quite a bit different than starting absolutely last. Even at Canton I managed to move up about to the back half of the middle of the field past the start finish line.

NoHo was going to be the test.

It proved to be more of a test than I had even planned or could imagine. I'd hooked up with a ride from my friend Ted. We rode around OTB at Bob Beals the one time i did it. He'd pull like mad on the hills, and i'd motor on the straights. Each of us just about dropping the other. And we finished. And a friendship was formed in battle. We raced together a bit that year in Cyclocross too. He's back stateside and in Newport and was heading up with space so I took him up on the offer with a planned pick up at my house between 7 and 7:30am.

So I've got everything outside and ready to go for the race at 7:15. The girls are getting ready to head to ballet and I notice the front tire on the golf is really low. under 20psi low. Shit. So the girls all head off in the Passat (race vehicle) but before they can take off i have to add some fuel.

That bit of craziness finished, I hung out in front of the house with Lucy. Then I grabbed the floor pump after a while and pumped up the front tire. It takes a while to fill up a car tire with a Silca Super Pista.

Wait some more. Now Ted gave up a cell phone when he came stateside this time. Something about being tired of having one glued to his ear for the last 6 years. So he was riding up w/o any means of letting me know if there was trouble.

8:15 and I started taking stuff out of the Golf. I had to go to the race. I was going to go and I couldn't wait around until it was too late to get there and race.

He showed up at 8:20 swearing appologetically. Between a gas pump that wouldn't pump more than a trickle or shut off and his own nearly flat front tire, a closed bridge he sat on for 30 minutes, and not quite wonderful directions from Google Maps he was very much delayed.

But we loaded up quickly and were on the road by 8:25. Now the whole time I was working hard to keep the anxiety level down. It took all my mental capacity to do it though. I just kept saying, relax, he will be here. He's got my number, if it came down to not getting here he would find some way to call. Heck I even contemplated cracking into one of the post race beers as a relaxation aid. But I didn't. Heck I didn't even race with any caffeine this time, no coffee, no caffeinated gels, nothing. Even skipped the sports legs.

After a nice ride up (sure is way nicer making that drive with someone to talk to) we got there at 10:25 or so. Not time enough to pre-ride, but time enough to say good luck to the 45+ guys lining up for their start. Got number, pinned up, got the trainer set up. Got some warm up in. Took wheels to the pit. Caught up briefly with Matt Simpson, saw a good number of folks, tried to heckle/cheer the guys racing but it was a focused short warm up on the trainer. My legs actually felt pretty crappy with the couple solid intensity efforts I did. Almost dead. But I hoped that the trainer would get the lead out of them. I'd seen the way they were starting and it looked good. Lots of room to drill it and move up if you could before getting to the steep run up.

Got to the starting line as Alan or Richard or someone was calling "Second Call To staging." Then the pointers started getting called up. I was chatting with Chapman for a while and mozied over and finally, my number was called up. Only Cole was still left to be called up. And he stayed back about 10-20 feet behind the last guy. We were jarring back and forth. It took me a good 20 seconds of standing on my toes scanning the massive crowd of 81 racers to find G-Ride in the bunch. Holy crap was he waaaaaaay up there.

Then the whistle blew.

and I'll have to get to the exciting part of the race and the finish line incident in a little while.

The girls have been playing outside for a couple hours now, such an amazing day today. I hope everyone is having a great and safe race up there at NoHo today!

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