What a weekend! You know, we have been waiting for the race season to begin and it did. For the first time this year, my sons, Thomas and Christian, MTFGKC riders, Josh and Jason and yours truly, packed up Josh’s 1999 Jeep Cherokee to the gills, with all sorts of equipment, clothes, food and drink, and set out into the wilderness that is Missouri, to attend a road development clinic in St. Louis, conducted by MOBRA (Missouri Bicycle Racing Association) and to race in Columbia, Missouri, in the Froze Toes road race.
Josh works at Starbucks, and had to work on Friday night, getting off at 12 midnight. So, we packed up and by 12:45am, we were on the road to St.Louis. The trip was uneventful, and we were in St. Louis by 4:30. But once there, after trying several hotels and finding "no room at the inn", we found out that this was the same weekend that St. Louis had it own version of Mardi Gras. So, we ended up all the way in East St. Louis, finally finding a room at a price that any "price gouger" would have been proud of, around 6:30am. To it’s credit, the room did have 3 beds. By 6:45, we had unpacked the Jeep, and had passed out.
The sleep we got felt like none at all, and we were up at 7:30, ’cause the clinic started at 8:30. We got there on time, and luckly, MOBRA was kind enough to have supplied bagels, juice, fruit and my friend, coffee, for those in attendance. We took full advantage.
There were probably 30-40 people in attendance, and from some of the conversations we had, some were new to the sport, while some seemed to be fairly experienced. Some had their USA cycling licence, while others knew nothing about them. I figure that as a group, we knew as much as most, but less than some. But everyone I met had a passion for cycling, and that is what counts. A lot of the folks we met, we saw the next day in Columbia.
The clinic was a classroom setting, with the presenters, Mark Rosen, Chris Hulse, and Jim Schneider, providing their insight on the topics of training programs, personal tactics, race preparation, and even post race topics- recovery, nutrition, hygiene, and personal assesment. And I have to admit, that I learned a lot, and had some things that I thought I knew, made so much clearer for me. I kid you not, the advice they gave about pre-race prep made a difference for me the next day. The clinic was, in my opinion, very informative, and when the next session takes place on March 11th, a road session clinic, we plan on being there.
With the clinic concluded at 12:30pm, you’d think we would go back to the hotel to sleep, but I was with a bunch of teens, in another city, and we ended up, in all places, at the mall, for the next 3 hours!!!! We got back to the hotel around 5:30, ate, and by 6:45, the boys had all passed. I had a chance to take care of some foundation business and crashed around 9:00.
I got the boys up the next morning at 5:45am, we packed up the Jeep again, ate the hotels complimentary breakfest of donuts and cereal, which I passed on, and took off for Columbia. We arrived there around 8:45, registered and then sat around, watching to see who showed up. Around an hour later, the registration table in this little elementary school gym was swamped, and I could not believe the number of people that were showing up.
We left to drive over the course, which was the best thing we could have done, got back and got dressed and started our warm up together. This is getting kinda long, so let me say this, there were literally hundreds of riders there… we met a lot of great people… the 31 mile race was the hardest thing I ever did…we all finished…(Thomas finished 5th in the jr. race) and it was the coolest thing we have done to date. We left Columbia around 2pm and got into KC around 5:30. Man, I was soooo glad to see my wife!!!!
We plan on heading to Lawrence, Kansas next weekend, to ride in the Spring Fling.
Check back and see how thing went. See ya!