There is a brilliant website for discovering and registering for bike events, bikereg.com. It has a Race Predictor, which you might think analyzes prospective parents' chromosomes, but instead, predicts who will beat whom in upcoming bike races. Despite the fact that I have lost to the legendary Nunzio in every race this year, Race Predictor insisted I would beat him last Saturday. It probably also predicted that the Eagles would beat the Patriots. You can probably guess where this story is going - yes, I finished ahead of Nunzio for the first time this season. I can't claim that I beat him per se, because at the start of the race, a pile-up separated us, and he was hopelessly behind from the start. He just went through the motions, even stopping to fix damaged crime scene tape marking the course. But these details will be lost in the mists of time, so let the record show that on 12/5/2015, I finished ahead of Nunzio.
How did Race Predictor know this would happen? Over my lifetime, I've spent more time with algorithms than with people, and to me, this seems more impressive than Watson beating Ken Jennings at Jeopardy. I should apply R.P's algorithm to lottery numbers.
Within the race, my story was that I passed and gained on both Dr. Lou and #20 (never got his name). Neither of these gentlemen were in my racing class, but you play the hand you're dealt, or more to the point, race the guy ahead of you. I had enough margin on the last lap to be sure I could beat them if I didn't make a mistake. Once again, you can probably guess where this story is going - 50 yards from the finish, I did something to dislodge my back wheel. If I had my wits about me and just picked up the bike and ran to the finish, I could have beaten them, but by the time I finagled my wheel back into alignment, both had passed me. C'est la vie, although I think I said something other than "la vie" at the time.
Sunday's race was a return the norm - Nunzio beat me, Mike beat both of us. After the race, we discussed how finishing third is actually pretty good for me, because I'm three or four years older than either of them. They pointed out that in the 15-18 or 10-14 year-old races, a couple of years makes a huge difference: 10 year-olds vs. 14 year olds? 15 vs. 18? Hardly fair contests, so on the other side of life's Bell Curve, shouldn't I, too, be graded on a curve? I felt pretty good about this until I realized the flip side of the argument - I am three or four years closer to infirmity, decay and decrepitude than either Mike or Nunzio. C'est la mort.
On a brighter note, regardless of what happens in the last race of the season next week, I will finish second in cumulative points. I'm #2!
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