NAUCC: RACE DAY
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.
