team unattached strikes again!

yesterday was university road race. because team unattached is way into team work, michiko rode solo. the only hills that i go up now-a-days are the bankings on the track, thus i serve more good yelling and handing out water.

michiko was really into not carrying around any extra weight. that is why she rides a steel bike. that is also why she only filled her water bottle 1/4 full and i had to feed her bottles 1/4 full. (but she only took one bottle the whole race-- which means she drank 1/2 bottle that whole time. she is so tough!)

michiko, always thinking: steel bike....weight of water bottle...

anyway, the race was quite exciting for me. on lap three there was a big pick-up in pace in the women's 4 pack. michiko was not in the lead group-- there were 3 of them plugging away with well over a minute lead on her. on lap 5 or 6 i noticed she was making up quite a bit of space, so i started getting her splits, and each lap more time would be coming off. it went from a minute to 48 seconds, to 35 seconds, to 28 seconds, to 18 seconds. i was getting excited cause at this point there were three laps left and this meant she'd be right up with the lead group on the last lap. guess how surprised i was when she made up 18 seconds on the next lap and i saw her coming around in the lead group! i never thought this was possible -- she looked calm and collected and was just kickin' ass and takin' names. i was screaming like a mad woman and was getting lots of weird looks from everyone around me jumping around and hollering down that hill. on two to go, one woman from the lead group (a CRC-Hill rider) had broken away up the hill with a sizable gap. Then it was Michiko, a webcor rider, and another unattached rider battling it out for 2nd-4th. I know Michiko can descend like its her job, and on the bell lap it was just her and Webcor rider with a small gap on the other unattached woman. Final sprint to the finish and Michiko was cooking it and I thought she had her, but not quite. An impressive third place--- battling it back from well over a one minute gap and then still having juice to sprint to the finish! What grit!!

this is michiko and strawberry shortcake going up a hill at an earlier date, not yesterday.

After the race Michiko took team unattached moto: "cool down, schmool down." Instead we had a little picnic on the parking lot concrete. (Peaches and fig newtons.) She is very intelligent and contemplative and waited a long time to get her "prize", for she knew that if they ran out of small t-shirts, Velo Promo would give her $10 instead. Yes, yes. She got her $10, we got lunch, then watched surfers, and then drove home planning our strategy for taking over the world.....errrr, women's 4 peleton. An impressive and exciting race to say the least!