Podium

When I first began racing bikes at age 35 my goal was always to take a top ten in the District Road Race Championships. Northern California where I was at that time was and still is a highly competitive district so this was to me both a lofty and a realistic goal. I would never have set winning or even a podium place as a goal knowing my limitations as an athlete. I finally achieved a top 10 result in my 40s on the long Fort Ord course, a real killer, and was very happy to have done so. I was in a group of 3 towards the end and I knew that only one of us was getting top ten, and turned myself inside out to get it. A couple days ago, racing the 65+ SoCal District Road Race Championships, I finally managed a podium finish. It would have been hard not to. There were only three of us who turned up at the start. The other two guys rolled up to me as we were lining up and said, "We're the podium." It sounds easy, but there's no such thing as an easy day road racing. They let us loose with about 15 60+ racers so we had a decent sized pack, but we had to keep their pace. Near the end of the first lap of four one of the other 65+ guys flatted, so I thought, "Wow, failing a crash or mechanical failure, I'm going to take the silver medal". I got sawed off the group shortly after that, and so had 37 hilly miles to ride solo at race pace to accomplish this. As it was an out and back course I could judge how far ahead of the third guy I was. By the final turnaround and 12 miles to go I realized that he was making up time on me and so started really giving it the stick. I put my head down and suffered. With about a mile or so to go I looked back. There was no one within miles of me. I kept the best pace I could to the line, and miracle of miracles ended up with the silver medal, and a small cash prize. I was delighted, and buzzed with happiness all the way on the two hour drive home. What I never hoped to accomplish through athletic gifts I've managed to achieve through dogged persistence, and a certain degree of luck.