Anniston is a fairly small town (well, by NZ standards I would say it was quite big, but by American standards it is micro!) but turns on a full on carnival for the whole day of racing with all sorts of food and craft stands, music, air guitar competitions, fun and games! People were so friendly and genuinely interested in our racing and what we were doing - it was a pleasure to race here!
It rained most of the day but dried out into a perfect evening in time for our race - a bit of a relief since the course had a few tricky corners that would have caused immense carnage in the rain!
The course had a long uphill finish straight with a super fast downhill back straight and it was full on from the gun. I tried to go for a few of the early primes but burnt many matches in my unsuccessful attempt and HURT for the rest of the race, not quite lasting the distance. Gave my legs and lungs a good blow out though.....
The high pace meant the field was shredded, so it was fantastic to see Anna and Kate still right up there at the end mixing it up. Both had exceptional races, with Anna coming in for 7th and Kate 14th. It didn't look like many more than 20 women finished, so big ups for the girls!!
The race director had organised a post race meal for all the teams at a delicious local restaurant, and we stayed on to watch the mens race and soak up some more of the atmosphere - it was a really fun night - and little did we know, but the adventures were just beginning......
We discovered, at the end of the evenings festivities, that White Lightening, our trusty Chevvy van, was not at all keen on 'roaring into life' as is usually the case........
Our 'women in distress' signals were attended to by several groups of would be mechanics, but to no avail. Luckily Anna's parents are brainy (just like her - she is doing a phd at Harvard in Micro-Biology) and gave her an AAA membership for Christmas, so we made the call and waited for the eventual arrival of Vaughn the tow truck guy, who was our hero of the evening.
Vaughn arrival was not exactly speedy, however we used the time constructively and pulled out all sorts of yoga and stretching moves, made friends with the locals, and the Jelly Belly Cycling team left us with a few mini bags of jelly beans in case we were stuck doing an all-nighter in the parking lot and needed sustenance, so we selected the best flavours (I vote coconut)...luckily they didn't spring any of the Harry Potter vomit or snot jobbies on us as a mean trick!
Eventually, Vaughan managed to crank White Lightening back into action and we finally made it back to Doug and Brenda's place to find Brenda had prepared a fruit fiesta for us to snack on before bed....Super host number 5!
Ok, well past our bed time now. Tommorrow is the last race in this epic Southern journey -in Sandy Spring, Georgia. Anna flies back to Boston straight after the race and Kate, Jenette and I head back to West Virginia so the final race report will be hot off the press sometime on Monday!
Laters!!
Dale :-)
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