Why to finish a race

A few months ago, Ted and I received a race notification in the mail. Actually, it was a Quad Games series...four separate races. For the price of $50 a person, we could enter all four races. The races included a 10K trail run in March, a 15-mile bike race, a duathlon in September, and a 10K road race in October.

The 15-mile bike race was earlier this month. In the past two years, I think I've biked a total of 6 miles. But we figured it wouldn't be a big deal...the 10K trail run in March was small and didn't hold too much competition. We figurd the bike race would be much of the same, and we'd finish in a respectable place. Our goal time was an hour, which we thought would be very reasonable.

We had a different think coming.

Race day showed to be about 200 sponsored bike racers, teams, and a few families who had entered the abbreviated family race (which was just one lap on the 5-mile course, as opposed to the three the rest of us would be doing). The race started, and everyone took off.

Now, let me give you a little background to Maggie and biking. I always had a bike...growing up, I got my first 10-speed when I was in 5th grade, and I was thrilled that I had passed up the temptation for a pink 10-speed, and instead opted for the tough-looking black 10-speed (my toughness was quickly thwarted, however, when the tough looking bike caused me to talk back to my mom and landed me with the loss of a bike, as well as whatever social life a 5th grader thought she had, for a week). Never mind that I never knew how to use the gears--who needed gears when you could just peddle harder going up a hill? And just as I was getting comfortable with the bike, a massive wipe-out caused me to forever fear gravel and peddling downhill and/or around a turn. In my mind, a bike was best suited for the back alley behind the house, the quarter-mile stretch of road in front of the old farm house, or in one's basement (as long as you watched out for your little brother on the tricycle). It was not well-suited for biking and exploring and traveling...or racing.

Fast-forward to Ted and Maggie's great bike race. Somewhere along lap 2 we began to get lapped ourselves. When everyone else was finishing the race, we were beginning the 3rd lap. The pace car followed close behind me with its flashers, and I'm sure the occupants were placing bets on how far I'd make it before they had to pick me up. At one point, I tried to look like I really did know what I was doing and grabbed my water bottle--only to drop it and have to dismount to pick it up. Ted was on ahead of me...but waited faithfully for me to catch up (at one point I came to the top of the hill to see him standing by his bike and talking to the road guard).

When we finally finished, with a time of 1:07, we entered a very quiet finishing shoot. The only people around to cheer us through were the race official, the timer, and a helper or two. All other fellow racers had headed up to the refreshments, and were waiting, quite annoyed, I'm sure, for the awards ceremony.

Despite all this hassle, I still came in first in my age group.

This goes to show you--always finish a race.