spoiled chinese girl

okay I slept in and didn't make my 100m. and I didn't end up on a relay team. and I dq'ed on my obstacle course and slow board (forwards only) but I got something like 37cm on the long jump and only 8cm on the high because I totally cleared way more than that on my 8cm jump but psyched myself out on the 11cm height.

and I did a teammate a favour by lending him my extra battery for my camera because his ran out. and I lent him my charger so he could charge his battery. and when I asked for that shit back at the flaming puck because I wanted some cool shots of the flaming puck, I get f***ing yelled at and f***ing lectured for asking and being told about traffic and shit and I am sunburnt, am suffering heatstroke, have only slept about 9 hours for the past 4 days and have f***ing eaten less than 200 calories each day and I don't need f***ing anyone yelling at me about trivial shit after if***ing do them a bloody favour because they were too f***ing stupid to charge their own battery.

and I had no battery no camera and f***ing no goo memories of the flaming puck.

and to combat this whole feeling like shit and having a total mental breakdown at the event for it, Im the most drunk Ive ever been at the convention. and Im rooming with quite the partier. and Ive *NOT* drank this much in a long f***ing ass time.

Alright.  Today should have been race day part 2 because I still had the 100m event that I was really hoping to get into.  I’m pretty decent on straightaways and as long as I didn’t fall I’m sure I would have placed really well.  Seeing as how the shorter the races got, the more competitors I had, it would have been a true judgement on my riding skill & speed.

Of course since the races started with the 100m they’re short races compared to the epic journeys of the 1500m meaning the races went by a lot faster.  And definitely a lot faster than I had expected, since I showed up an hour after races started, and they were well into the “old geezer” categories of racing when I arrived.  I attempted to find a relay team but the kids who were much excited about it all had their team spots filled and I wasn’t about to venture outside of the Toronto group to find a team.  Maybe I should have, that’s what Emily ended up with and it looked like a whole lot of fun.  I guess my worry about letting down a team that wasn’t “Team Fun” was just too unbearable.  Next time maybe.

So it was a long day of waiting for the Trials competition to start.  In the meantime I went and headed to the obstacle course and all that jazz at the other end of the parking lot.  It was even hotter over there due to the fact that there was even less shade.  I practiced my long jump and my high jump just a little bit because I noticed the more I practiced the tireder I got.  I highly doubt “tireder” is even a word but whatever.

I can only really do static-seat-in jumps so my long jump was around 37 cm on the first go and 31cm on the second go.  The high jump I was told my first jump that was at 8cm I cleared at least the next level above it.  But once the bar got moved that high (I think it was the 11cm) I knocked it both times.  If I’m remembering the event properly, I was way tired and sunburnt at that point and couldn’t really judge that I was way too close to the bar to ever make it over.

I rushed through the obstacle course and the slow board, DQing off both of them without practice runs (I figured if I practiced I’d just get more tired anyways) which I pretty well expected at the event.  I’d never been one to be able to weave in the obstacle course and the practice slow board that the McCormicks made I only made it across once, and I flew across it just to stay on.

Headed to the trials area and started getting ready for that.

I think there was something like 25 or so lines in total.  For the beginners that went first, we had up to the 18th line open.  All of the trials lines were off the ground (by at least 2 inches) so to make the beginners feel more comfortable about being beginners, the rules were if you were a beginner and wanted a hand for part or the full line, you were welcome to it.

That was the most bloody brilliant thing I’d ever heard of.  So it was me, Sarah and Alice (whom were sharing a unicycle, as well as helmet, pads and gloves) that went around to the dirt easy lines.  I spent the majority of my time helping people up onto lines (them, as well as one of the boys from Barrie who’s name I can’t remember) and finished a few lines of my own.  At least once I recall having fallen not only off the line but off the unicycle.  Onto my severely sunburnt shoulder onto the hot pavement.  It wasn’t the fall that hurt, but the bits of pavement and gravel that stuck into my shoulder that really took a few moments to get over.  I completed four lines before I called it quits and grabbed some water and energy drink.  Once the beginners were being called off the course I went to judge a line for the sport & expert categories.

Judged for as long as I could, all while talking to a guy from the Redford group when I started practicing my idling skills and generally just hopping around on Chicklet to pass the time since my trials line wasn’t all that popular.  Even though I wasn’t great at idling I was able to pass on what everyone’s told me about it and hopefully he understands it and can get it because so far I haven’t really.  At this point my idling skills need to be muscle memory.  Which sucks.

Also was able to talk to some kids who live in the area who didn’t know what was going on.  Explained to them that nationals was being held and what the trials was being done.  I have to say kids are weird.  I remember being in the 5-10 age range and not really wanting to say a whole lot, especially to strangers.  And if I said anything to strangers it was a compliment.  But now when there’s little kids around all I get is insults.  The one time I was rollerblading with my friends and did a realy piss-poor job of it going up hill, I heard a maybe 5 or 6 year old girl saying “Mommy! Why is she going so slowly?!” like screaming it out.  And at the convention while I was practicing my idling and my hopping I had a kid ask me what I was doing, when I explained I was judging the trials competition his reply to that was “For a judge, you’re not very good on that thing.”  And I don’t understand how kids get away with that.  I basically just told him “I’m a beginner trials rider, these guys you’re watching are in expert” but I have to say it was still pretty insulting for some stranger kid to tell me I sucked at something I like doing.

Also at some point, which just so happen to be in front of a bunch of people, I was hopping and fell flat on my rear.  I was fine.  Chicklet was fine.  But still.  Andy was nice enough to make the joke that for a dollar I’d do it again.  To which I replied with “I see where your dollar is going! I want at least two!”  Laughter does take pain away.

I finally asked someone else to judge my trials line for me so I could get some pictures of the expert trials riders and got some pretty decent ones.  Then I headed back to the hotel when my battery died to attempt to find the people who borrowed my spare (and my charger) and also to shower and take a nap before the flaming puck.  I wanted to stay to watch the street comp but I was way wiped out.

Napped.  Got to the event right when the street comp was ending so I missed everything.  And it was dark by then so I’m not sure how the judges were faring on judging street in the dark.  Watched the beginning of flaming puck which was cool but not as much fun as in Toronto.  Didn’t really line up to play because I think the sunburns and heatstroke and probably dehydration was definitely affecting me.  Accepted an offer of hanging out by the outdoor pool from my roommate Jamey and headed back.

Beat him back to the hotel at least.  Stayed in mostly a resting “ah… air conditioning…” type mode until he arrived.  I cracked open two bottles of cooler and poured it into my Nalgene water bottle in case we got busted for glass containers at the pool and went over.  Mainly hung out with Roman and Brittney with our legs in the pool while Jamey decided to jump in… and stand there.  Downed my drinks pretty quickly, grabbed a bottle of beer off Jamey and was pretty toast at that point.  I remember heading back to my room, and walking into at least one wall.  Re-filled my Nalgene bottle and headed back to the pool just to hang out and chat some more.  Missed out on the Toronto’s icecream party in the party room but it was nice just laying around outside.  Finished my drinks and me and Jamey went back to our room but not before watching Brittney finally succeed in throwing Roman into the pool.   Giggled then went to bed.

Alright!  I’ve been in Saline MI for the past 2 days and I’m finally participating in something.  I registered myself for everything possible under the sun.  Literally as it comes to show.  But I signed up for the 1500m, the 400m, the 100m, the 10m slowboard (Forwards) the relay race, the basketball (which I missed because I wasn’t there the first day) the hockey, flaming puck, trials, muni, uphill, downhill.  I basically checked off anything I could humanly do.

Monday was all about the races.  They had the obsticle course, the high jump and long jump and slowboards set up as well.  But I wanted to watch people race.

When it was my turn to register for the 1500 I was still thinking “Do I really want to ride 1.5km in this heat?!)  Well my age group was called up and I registered.  And found out that I was the only one in my age group racing.  I went to tell the boys (Jeff & Roman from the Toronto group) that I already won and their only reply was “BAH! There *AREN’T* any girls here our age!”… thanks guys 

Wendy who was one of the organizers was the only one in her age group racing.  She’s one age group above me, so we raced each other.  And basically decided it would be a casual 1500m ride.  I went as fast as I felt comfortable, and Wendy just matched my speed the whole time.  She noticed what I noted, that I’m faster on straightaways than I was in turns.  And I mentioned how I tended to speed up when passing the Toronto group for the fact that I needed to at least look like I was working.  We chatted about lots of stuff while we rode.  I made the suggestion for the last straightaway we should race.  And I rode as fast as I could without falling off (I was pretty winded to be honest of 3 laps of that track!) and Wendy just kept right up with me.  Our times were officially 0.01 seconds apart.

I waited for hours and hours for my next race because sadly it takes that long to do that many races.  I have to admit I found it really silly that in one age category there was a woman who took 25 minutes to finish the 1500.  I mean sure me and Wendy took just about 10 minutes to do it.  But we could have both easily freemounted if we got off our uni’s.  I really REALLY like the idea of having a time limit on races.  Say if an average rider can finish it in X amount of minutes, tack on another 3.  And if the race isn’t finished by X+3 minutes, then end the race.

I did my 400m which consisted again of my age group 19-29 plus Wendy’s age group 30-39 and there were now 4 of us in the heat.  Since there were more people Wendy couldn’t stay to chat but I didn’t mind since it was a much shorter race.  And I must say I’m uber excited in the fact that I came in third out of four riders.  Just barely but still.  Wendy and the other girl in my age group were pretty evenly matched.  Me and the other woman in Wendy’s age group were pretty evenly matched.  So it was fun.

After that I gave up and went back to the hotel.  I wasn’t in the mood for obstacle courses or the slow boards. And there was the parade event that I was in no mood for.  So I didn’t participate in that in a trade-off for hanging out at the pool.  I think hockey was that night.

Toronto had two hockey teams.  Toronto A which was our “stacked” team with all of the serious competitors who we named the Mighty Geese… and their huddle, as well as our crowd cheering was a very simple “HONK! HONK! HONK!”  By the semi-finals, the team name had been announced as “The Toronto Mighty Geese, or the Honkers”

I was on the Toronto B team, which was renamed the Toronto Fun team which consisted of people who weren’t that competitive, and were playing for the sake of playing.  Hockey is a HARD game to play on a unicycle.  I played on Chicklet, my trials uni, because that’s what I’m most comfortable riding, but yea, it was tiring to say the least.  I had two shots on goal when I was in goal, and blocked one of the two.  We lost the game I believe 5-1.  But since we had fun, we were winners.

Back to the hotel for much needed shower and rest.

I am officially the fastest 19-29 yr old female in north america in 1500m on a 24″ wheel.
I am also officially the second fastest 19-29 yr old female in north america in the 400m on a 24″ wheel.

tomorrow: 100m, 10m slow forwards, trials, obstacle course

my phone's keypad no longer works. it's a razr. I realize this was going to happen. but why when I'm on vacation?!?

well. it's race day. perhaps its for the best.