I didn’t write about Saturday’s race because it felt pretty uneventful — I rode with category 3 and 4 women and finished somewhere in the middle of the pack, a little towards the back. I felt uncomfortable pretty much the whole race because I didn’t like the corners; once again I’ve discovered that I need to practice cornering. I’m particularly bad when I have to make left turns, which this course makes you do; I’m not sure why, but I’m much slower and more awkward turning left than I am turning right. And I witnessed a nasty crash in the middle of my race on one of those awkward corners — last I saw one of the women who went down was lying on her side with a neck brace on, waiting to be moved onto a stretcher to go to the hospital. So after the race I rode straight to the car and we went home — it was late anyway, and I was eager to be done with it all.
Well, today I checked out the results online, and it turns out I won a silver medal — and it turns out that I was 22nd out of 34 finishers. Here’s how both of those things can be true: the category 3 and 4 women ride together but they get scored separately, so although 21 people finished ahead of me, only six of them were category 4 riders, so I got 7th in my field. And then this particular race awards medals to the top 3 Connecticut riders, and I happened to be the second category 4 rider from Connecticut to cross the line (the others were from Massachusetts or Rhode Island), so I won a medal! But I don’t have it because I ducked out of there so quickly. Oops.
Of Books and Bicycles 
That’s great–too bad you didn’t actually get the medal–will they send it to you? Is this your first medal? I think if I saw someone crash and then have a neck brace on I might want to get out of there right away, too.
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Congrats on your medal! Now how will you get it? 🙂
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Oops indeed! Congratulations!
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Congratulations! Can’t wait to run around telling everyone I have a friend who’s a silver medalist.
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WAY cool! Congrats!
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Thanks everyone — it’s kind of funny that I could win something when I didn’t think I rode very well. I don’t know how (or whether) I’ll get the medal — I might email the race coordinator and see what he says.
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Congrats! How unsettling to see the crash. Must be so hard to concentrate and focus after that. But you did alright and even won a medal! Hope the race coordinator can send it to you.
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I completely agree with your definition of “depressing” -you made me feel much better, so thanks for that.
I know nothing about racing, but it sounds like you did really well!!! 🙂
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Hey, congrats. It’s actually rather cool, to duck out so quickly before receiving the medal.
If you do manage to get the medal after all, be sure to post a picture of it.
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Oh congratulations! Isn’t that the way? Success never comes when you expect it. It’s like a little parable, this post.
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Well done, Dorothy!
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Stefanie — yes, it was unsettling to see the crash — that’s the downside of racing, and it’s a big one.
I’m glad Hepzibah — and I just wrote a post about it!
Orpheus — that’s right, no silly podium picture for me 🙂 That’s one detail I left out of the post — that the medalists stand on a podium and get their picture taken.
Litlove — that’s exactly the way! I need to keep this story in mind …
Thank you Jess.
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