Any five-hundred mile car trip is a bad idea, but getting a chance to do my first draft- legal race was going to make it worth it. Our teammate Micheal, our driver for that weekend’s trip, had the right plan of getting us up at 5:00am to make the trip and skip the LA traffic, and so by 8:00 am we had hit the central valley.

The drive was long, but, as with many things, music helped take the edge off. By noon we had made it to San Jose and were antsy to get out and pick up our packets. Pulling up to the race site and getting the chance to walk for the first time in hours was amazing, but it was soon over shadowed by being able to eat a good hardy lunch with my family. The rest of the day was spent relaxing and trying to teach myself flying mounts at my old high school. I made some progress on both fronts but had to stop so I could go race.

Race morning came too quickly, like it always does, and soon I was once again hooking the seat of my bike to the transition area rail and body gliding my legs up for another race. This was going to be a day with two races: a speedy draft legal and a sprint. I was most nervous for this first race because it was a format I had never done, and the many overbearing rules did give me at least a little pause. I had double checked all of my gear to make sure it was cleared, but I was most worried about the infamous lap out rule. Thankfully that wasn’t in the cards for me. I can’t tell why I was worried about being lapped out, but hindsight—for better or worse— often makes you at least a little blind to what you knew before. The rest of the race went as well as it could and soon I was warming back for my second race of the day. This one had its own unique challenges—the fatigue being the main one—but after one final push I was done and could finally give my now quite sore legs a rest

The whirlwind of a day didn’t slow down though and it couldn’t. We loaded back up into Micheal’s car and found the other side of the highway. The trip was long and silent—there was an understandable amount of napping that went on. As we neared San Diego it was decided we would need some singing and so picked out some of the most shout-able songs to do so: they ranged from Kansas’ “Carry on Wayward Son” to the Killer’s “Mr. Brightside”. We often really only knew the chorus, but that didn’t stop us from reveling in the simple joy of shouting at the top of our lungs and not having to give a care who heard us. Even though Micheal’s faithful speaker did die after serving us so well those long hours our karaoke hour had fit perfectly as an ending to a long and tiring weekend. It was a chance just to relax and not have to worry about hitting a goal or putting on some great performances. We could shout as loud as we wanted and enjoy the end of our great little journey.

Article By Henry McCulloh