Race report, Part II - And we're off!

Click here to read Part I

Despite having only 2 hours sleep, I was surprisingly chipper when I woke up Sunday morning. I got up, got dressed, checked my tire pressure, and woke up Noah.

I don't know if I've mentioned this, but Noah inherited my aversion to early mornings. He hadn't slept much either, complaining half the night that his bed was sooo uncomfortable. (Not that I blame him...there is a reason I haven't slept on a sofabed since I was a teenager.) He still dropped off around 1:00, but five hours is about half of a normal night for him. As a result, he woke up with about nine different kinds of attitude...grumbling under his breath, throwing things around, shooting me sullen glances, the whole bit (man, can I wait till he's a teenager!). I was determined to remain calm and cheerful, and we managed to get his bike from the van, breakfast from the Starbucks in the lobby, and on the way to the start location (about 1/2 mile away) by 6:50.

We had our race packet by 7:10, parked our bikes in the staging area, and were left with nothing to do but lounge around until 8:00. I took this time to assess the competition. I heard a lot of conversations about route plans, and the consensus seemed to be "North first." I decided then that we would fall back to my old plan of hitting Jo's Coffee first, only taking a right on Congress instead of going down S. 1st St. This way, we could walk up the short incline on James, then get back to 1st St going mostly downhill, taking the northbound bike path across the bridge. By the time we got up to the checkpoints, all the "north firsters" would have cleared out. Brilliant! I spent the rest of our idle hour trying to find a suitable place to stash our race packet and trying to get Noah cheered up. I was able to accomplish both goals by 7:45, and we joined the lineup by the start area.

We were assigned numbers 101 and 102, which meant that we were in the first heat--I must have done pretty well on that bonus quiz. After a delay to be sure all checkpoints were ready to go, the start horn sounded at 8:20. Finally, we were off! We ran to our bikes, holding hands and trying not to get run over by the crowd.

The running lasted about 15 seconds, after which Noah let go of my hand and insisted on walking. I tried a couple times to get him to at least jog, but he was having none of it. I gave up by the time we rounded the underpass, reminding myself that this is supposed to be FUN, and I didn't want to waste what little good humor he had left. We got onto our bikes before the next starting group, anyway, so it was still okay.

Once on the road, we were going at a satisfactory pace of around 12 mph. There was a traffic cop at the first intersection, and not many people going our way, so I was feeling pretty proud of myself for altering our route. About this time, Noah yelled up to me, "You're going too fast! This isn't the 'leave your son in the dust' race!"

We slowed our pace, and got to the turn onto Congress. This, too, was fine...until we hit the uphill. It wasn't steep, but it was persistent. The more I looked back, the more Noah was falling behind. I slowed down. I slowed down some more. I noted with dismay that we were getting passed by dozens of bikes. Since Jo's was the only checkpoint in this direction, this was a very bad sign. I stopped to wait for the boy. He caught up, and I did my best to stay with him until we got to the checkpoint. This was a pattern that would repeat every time the incline was greater than, oh, I don't know...let's say 2% elevation.

When we got to the checkpoint, we got in a line behind roughly 20 other teams. I read the obstacle instructions, which involved filling a bucket with water from a kid's wading pool, each of us running back and forth with one small plastic cupful at a time. Easy enough, right? There was another activity where one teammate had to carry the other on his/her back through a course of traffic cones while wearing a blindfold. Man, was I glad that I was choosing the water one!

I was just about to the front of the line when a man spoke up. "Have you done the piggyback yet?"

"No."
"You have to do that one first, the line goes over there."

Luckily, everyone was doing the same thing, so we didn't have to get in line again, just angle a bit. As we inched closer to the front of the line, dread was creeping up on me. Noah weighs about 130 lbs. I somehow had to carry him on my back and make it through a 25-ft maze of cones. Blindfolded. Our less-than-healthy lifestyle of the past 10 years was coming back to haunt me.

As it turned out, it was easier than I expected. Noah was a good navigator, and even though we went very, VERY slow, we didn't knock over any cones, and I never had to put him down and rest. The water event went quickly...without the extra weight, I practically flew to the wading pool and back. Noah was speedy too, having rested during the wait and the piggyback ride.

By the time we got our bead and were back on our bikes, this first checkpoint had taken over 45 minutes. Oy. I began to realize that my hopes of a 10:00 am finish had been hopelessly optimistic.

The ride between checkpoints 1 & 2 was fraught with distress. This was the hardest part of my planned course...hot and mostly uphill, with our moods going rapidly downhill. We went straight up Lavaca, which was actually a pretty good route. The road wasn't steep, but the incline was constant, which Noah found particularly punishing. I tried to keep the mood light, but he was getting gloomier with every pedal stroke. I pointed out the capitol building as we passed, since he had been anxious to see it up close. He shot it a resentful glance. Shortly after that, we took to the sidewalk and walked. I was still trying my very best not to get impatient, but it took some serious effort.

Once the road sort of leveled off a bit, I made him get back on his bike and started to pull out the Mom lies.

"We're nearly there!" We were crossing 12th St, at least 8 blocks before our turn onto MLK.

"This is the last big hill before the next checkpoint!" Well, kind of. I honestly wasn't sure that Speedway was any shorter/less steep.

"You're doing great!" I really did mean this. I know that he's not very fit, and all things considered, he was really holding up very well.

Somewhere around 18th St., I looked back and saw him walking again. Slowly. I missed two lights in the time it took him to walk one block, and managed to scrape the back of my ankle on my drive train somehow. Now, I was frustrated. After a few fruitless gestures, my patience broke and I rode back to where he was. "Noah, get back on your bike. This is barely uphill, and we don't have far to go. We have to finish this race by noon, and we're never going to make it if we walk every time there's a little incline. Ride."

"I hate this stupid race and I want to go home." He started to cry. I felt like a giant asshole. I shifted to a slightly gentler tone.

"We talked about this, Noah. We are not quitting. Get on your bike." He did.

We finally reached the turn onto MLK, and I discovered something that I didn't scope out ahead of time--Congress does not actually become Speedway, the way it seems on the map. Instead, there is a large building and plaza between the two. I hadn't seen this the night before, because I took the Trinity around the capitol and picked up Speedway at 21st. It was too late to do anything about this, though, because riding MLK all the way to Trinity would mean a steep uphill to Speedway, and I couldn't bear the thought of another 2 mph walk. We turned left into the plaza. Noah missed the ramp, and crashed into the curb, landing heavily on his side.

I dropped my bike and ran to him. Thankfully, there was no bleeding. A couple who was crossing the street saw what happened and offered me their cell phone, but I waved that he was okay. And he was...we checked for broken bones, sprained joints, and found none. He was able to walk, and I picked up the bikes and leaned them against a pillar while we rested and calmed down.

It was now about 9:45, we were both injured, we were down to one bottle of water, and we had only completed one of the seven checkpoints.

Next up: Part III - Salvation by Big Wheel