Race Report, in Brief: Winchester Apple Cross

I’m just out of time to do this report properly right now, but aiming to post something before I forget it all.  We all (me, wife, son, daughter) headed out to Winchester for the Apple Cross on Sunday.  The rain of the previous week weeks month, plus the 2:00 start time, meant the course was torn up and downright boggy in lots of places.  I had a great time.

Not sure what my favorite part was:

• starting from the back row of 76 starters, and working up through the field to finish 16th;
• the mid-race wedding ring handoff to my wife, live-commentated by race announcer Bill S. from In The Crosshairs;
• hearing “Go Daddy” all over the course as the boy rode around to different spots to cheer;
• having my wife volunteer to wash my bike afterwards in exchange for chasing the kids around the playground;
• seeing my son figure out how to get started pedaling on his bike (no training wheels) for the first time and watching his confidence grow as he ripped around the registration pavilion;
• hanging out by the delightfully large fire in the pavilion’s fireplace; or
• seeing teammates and friends and just soaking in the community that has developed around this little race that barely had a couple hundred racers a few years ago.

We needed all of that.  It’s been a rough couple of months, and a particularly stressful last two weeks.  I missed my first three races of the season, including my own team’s event.  I needed something to blow out the pipes and get a race under my belt; we needed to hang out as a family; the kids needed to burn off all the excess energy from being cooped up over the last few weeks; and I needed to see my wife in some of her many roles, beautiful woman, athlete, mother, caretaker and supporter.

 

I think would have been happy with a nondescript mid-pack finish.  Add in all that other great stuff and improving by a few places on last year’s finish, and I’m delighted.  I’ll be going back to that well of happiness a lot in the months ahead, I can tell.