Philly

I got to stop by Philly this past weekend for the pro race this week. It was cool to see Mike Friedman there. He's one of the local 'Pittsburgh boys done good'. He's been having a pretty good year this year and it was exciting to see him all over the front matching moves, trying to get into the one that was going to stick in the last few miles of the race. Unfortunately the last time around Independence hall, he got swarmed and finished in the teens. It made for great viewing and I was yacking with him mom and stepdad as the final short circuits were starting. It would have been good to see a teammate up there helping pull some of the moves back so Mike didn't have to react to everything, but after a long hot day like that, maybe they weren't able to. In the women's race there were also a couple teams from the Baltimore and DC area there. It was cool to see some of them actually hanging in with the main group. Arley Kemmerer looked pretty good going up the hill though she wound up finishing in a group about 8 minutes down. I would imagine that alot of that time was from the 'damn, it's hot and we're dropped. Let's just ride in to the finish and be done with it'. She's one of the several crossers from the MABRA/MAC series there and it's good to see them racing in an event of this stature. On a day like yesterday, anyone who finished had to go through quite a bit to do so. The girls who were off the back in the first couple laps were getting cheered on just as much as the front runners. Their race was over, but they were still climbing and making the effort to get up the hill and keep going. You have to admire that when it would've been much easier to just bag it and go find some shade and a cool drink which is incidently what I was doing at this point. I finally got some good sun for the day though the ol' Irish skin was a bit redder than I would like. But it was a good day. I got to see some friends, enjoy a good race and even found a source for some good remedies for the physical issues I have had to deal with over the years. On top of that, I was mistaken for someone who was in their early 30s. The lady could have been someone who had just been out in the sun for a bit too long, the old 'let's massage the ego of this poor sap so he buys some stuff from us' or maybe I'm not showing the years as bad as I think. I'm not going to quibble over it though. I have to take the compliments when I can get them.