Pace Bend

I have a test in two hours and a bunch of design work due tomorrow - time to write a blog. (Note that this means I'll have pictures of architecture stuff to put up soon!)

Last weekend was Walburg/Pace Bend.
After 6 years in a row of not finishing Walburg, I decided that there was no reason to continue the streak. As per usual (and despite the opposing forecast) Walburg was rainy and cold and after talking to everyone that went I decided that skipping out was definitely a good call.
Sunday rolled around and once again Barry Lee managed to get the Gods on his side and the temperature was up in the mid 70s by time I got to the park. (It's snowing today for comparison of how crazy out of place that weather was.)

(Cue some more people coming over and asking me how to do things on the test.)
(Cue me using some more parenthesis.)

Anyway.
I rolled up to the park, got my number, scrounged up some pins, aired up the Zipps, put my kit on at some point in time, filled my bottles, warmed up a little and headed off to staging to sit around and completely negate the half hour warm up I had just done. Talked to a bunch of people I haven't seen in forever, laughed at the people that still pin their numbers on upside down, and then the race started and I did some more of the same.
We had 62 miles to race, and for most of it I just chilled in the pack and either caught up with the people I don't see in the off season or made fun of the sketchy riders, Alberto Contador wannabe, guy with only one rear brake pad, guy that kept talking to himself, guy riding a TT frame, etc etc etc. Not to say we weren't going fast or anything, I was just feeling really good (it's easy to tell when people weren't talking back to me). I did bridge up to a break one time because it looked like it might be going somewhere, but it wasn't.
When we hit two laps to go (they're 6.2 miles each) (that's ten laps total, before you have to go and do the math yourself) (parenthesis) I headed up to the front of the pack where everyone was trying to get someone else to go chase down the guy who off the front by himself. I guess the general consensus was that he would get tired and come back on his own, because no one did anything resembling chasing him down.
We got down to the last two or three miles and he was only maybe 100 feet in front of us, and after some yelling at each other to go catch him, Will finally decided to take care of the problem and bridged up. So then it was the two of them maybe 100 feet in front of us. And they stayed there.
We got down to the last mile of the race or so and finally broke into the part where everyone gets all sketchy and close to each other trying to be at the front. I had memories of last year when half the pack went down in the last corner and decided that I was going to avoid that this year, since it would probably happen again. With about (sudden unit change OMG) 300 meters to go, right before the final bend, I got a chance and jumped off the front of the pack.
I was closing the gap on Will and the other guy fast and knew I would beat them to the finish easy enough, and about that time Shane (Chad's little brother) came flying by me. There was no way I was going to be able to do anything about that, so I just kept going and hoped no one else was coming that fast. There was some noise behind me, but it was only one guy (although looking at pictures everyone else was a lot closer than I thought at the time) and he didn't have quite enough to get by me before the finish (I'm very happy the race wasn't ten feet longer).
Yes, you read that right, no one else came by me - yes, that does mean I got 2nd place! No, I still have never won a road race... Yes, I'm more than happy with 2nd, I really wasn't expecting that out of myself.

Play by play of the last 100 meters. Courtesy of Joseph's dad.

Also, it was Brandon's first ever weekend of road racing. He did pretty good. And he better write something about it.
Also, someone I know did her first ever duathlon this weekend. She did pretty good. (And she better write something about it, too.)
Also, (parenthesis).