I finally relaxed when I saw the girl on a mountain bike wearing a basketball jersey top and baggy shorts.  ‘She can’t be more than 11 or 12’ I thought, ‘I have to be able to out-sprint her if we are the last two to finish…Yeah, I own her '(now I was getting cocky).  So I was finally ready for my first non-Wheelman race.  After getting lapped, dropped, used, and abused for my first month of club races I was looking forward to racing against people as inexperienced as myself.   

My first plan was to develop a race strategy so I turned to the sage advice of the father figures of the Wheelmen (in truth, I just asked everyone whose name I knew).  Everyone gave his own two cents; 

Dave Komives- ‘don’t crash’ 
Dave Teall- ‘don’t crash’ 
Jim Sarks- ‘don’t make me crash’ 
Dan Lehmann- ‘just don’t piss me off’

Well, now I was ready.  Just before the start I received one last tidbit from Bowling Green hero Matt Thourot.  ‘Should I try to follow the first break that goes?’ I asked,  ‘A break!’ he laughed, ‘It’s a cat 5 race, the 6 guys who are in shape will just ride away and lap everyone else.’ 

‘Oh, right, I forgot’. 

Right away the race got exciting for me.  On lap 1 I was enjoying a nice leisurely drink from my water bottle (I just brought one because it was only a 10 mile race, it seemed good logic at the time) when a group sped past me on the right.  Remembering Matt’s advice I assumed that it was the aforementioned in-shape guys so I tried to accelerate to catch up and put my bottle back at the same time.  Whoops.  Bye-bye  water bottle, hello dry mouth.   

Dan Lehman, Dr. Eric Snider, and Brian Geoff were leading the group of 6 or 7 of us away from the rest of the field, and I was trying my best to do my share of the work and not make anyone crash.  The highlight of the race for me was when Dr. Snider grew tired of his role as the ‘Little Engine that Could’ and decided that the other guys (non-Wheelmen) were not contributing to our group dynamic as well as they could.  So he drifted back beside them and in a fatherly tone quipped, ‘Listen you son of a gun, if you are not going to do any gosh darn work, please be kind enough to move to the back of our line’.  I guess it kind of worked because one of them moved to the front and pulled for a lap or so like a man possessed and then politely blew up. 

With about a lap and a half left the pace slowed a little as everyone prepared for the finish.  I took the opportunity to pull up beside Brian and ask for some water.  He played the good Samaritan and handed me one of his (he was smart enough to bring two).  Apparently, someone behind us saw this gesture as a moment of weakness and decided to jump just as I was returning Brian the bottle.  ‘Sorry’ I shouted as we chased back on to the group. (Whoops).   

With one turn to go before the finish no one had made a move yet.  I was on Dan’s wheel and I thought about our numerous training rides over the course of the summer.  Every time we rode I would try to jump around him before a sign sprint (hoping that he wasn’t paying attention and that I might actually beat him for once), and every time he would fly by and have enough of a gap to turn around and make some comment about my family or heritage before we passed the sign.  So I decided to let Dan make the first move this time.  He did, and he got second.  Dr. Snider showed us all that he was neither amused nor impressed and he sprinted away for the win.  Some other guy got third and Brian caught me for 4th(only fitting).   

So that was that 4 Wheelmen finished in the top 5, not bad.   First race under my belt, and  to top it off I got to hear Dr. Snider remark ‘That really wasn’t that hard at all’ as I lay shamelessly in the grass because my legs had decided that they had done enough work for one day.  

See more about this race here.