Masters Nats RR

As I get on the trainer, a guy walks up and introduces himself......Kenny Fuller. He borrows our bike pump and I help him with a funky air valve. Kenny is the defending Nat Champ and I later learn, the owner of 40 Stars and Stripes jerseys....yes 40! I pumped up his tires.

It is 10AM and 42 of the top bike racers(60-64) in the US are staging. The temp is 96 already and the official told us there would be a 10 minute delay. I look around and see 41 guys with an average body fat of about 8%. From the neck down, they look like Airborne Rangers.

At the gun it goes fast. We have 7x5mile laps and I am suffering in the first mile! The two 'selection' hills are near the end and they are brutal. We go up Cochran Hill at about 20mph, a fast downhill and the climb to the start finish. At the finish of the first lap, I am off..........who is with me?? Ralph Smook, Jim Cunningham Sr and one other guy. We are still flying and we soon pick up Angelo Cilli (the Wilier Distributor for the US).

When come back again, I hear my team mates cheering(if you ever go to Nats, go with your team mates, they are essential to success)and telling me that my group is 16-20th. We ride the ensuing laps harder than I previously believed I could ride. We catch stragglers and drop a few. In the last lap, there are 9 of us. I sense two are off on Cochran and one guy makes a break. The other six of us, are together. I tell myself, I have it.

We hit the final hill, over one minute of pain. Jim(gets 15th) clips me by a few seconds and I am 18th. My disappointment at not beating Jim, is quickly overcome with the relief of just finishing. Cool down, are you kidding?? I ride over to Teenie, Kenny and Pam Fuller. They help off the bike and I collapse in a chair...not talking....still shaking. Teenie pours cold water over me. Kenny tells me I did great! Kenny had just gotten the 40th jersey with his win.

I hear him tell a guy he had raced this course for the first time in 1976 with the Olympic Team. Wayne Stetina(55-59) and John Howard and him had raced 24 laps of 120 miles on the course. He says today was hard and he did not want to go one more lap.

It is the hardest race I have ever done. I am just proud to have finished. I am thrilled to have been here.