Adventure Week 2
The award ceremony at l’Abitibi was fun despite leaving empty-handed, not surprisingly. While my teammates were partying I stayed at the room to try to get as much rest as possible before an early wake-up. I think my strategy worked because I was feeling very awake at around 4:30 in the morning. After finishing packing and putting the boxes in the trailer, we left a little after 6:00.
That started the six-hour drive back to Montreal. We hit some serious rain on the way, and a few times we had to regroup our three-car caravan. After a little delay after missing the exit to the airport, we made it. Without getting to say goodbye or thanks, I rushed to the check-in as quickly as possible to leave myself the maximum amount of time at the airport.
Everything went smoothly, and I got on my flight to Washington, D.C. The small plane had no in-flight entertainment, so I passed the short amount of time snacking on trail mix. To my disappointment, I was not greeted by President Obama at the airport. I grabbed a sub at Subway and was soon aboard the plane to my next destination, Portland. This plane had some televisions but not personal ones, so I was forced to watch whatever was on. I saw an episode of This American Life, which I liked. I’ve heard the radio show before, but that was the first time I saw the show. Then they showed 17 Again, which I already saw on the way out, so I passed the time the old-fashioned way, reading a book. Finally I watched the finale of Top Design. That was fascinating.
Eventually I arrived in Portland and finally got to see my dad again. All of my luggage timely arrived, and then we drove for three hours to the hotel in Bend, where my brother and my mom were already trying to fall asleep. My brother and I have both done our road races here at Nationals. His race started out way too fast, so he got dropped, lapped, and pulled. My race was today. I initially thought that the course was really difficult, which I liked, but during the actual race not enough people got dropped for my liking. I finished in the main group, but I didn’t really contest the sprint, so I didn’t get a very special result. I’m still fairly satisfied, but I’m also looking forward to not racing with 100 other sketchy juniors for a while. Either I need to improve my bike-handling skills, I’m just not stupid enough to ride riskily, or a little bit of both. But for now I’ll stick with hilly Pro/1/2 road races.
Tomorrow are both of our time trials. I’m not that excited.