Day #13

This was the 500m TT day for Imari, Noah and Hunter. It was also the 200mTT for Royce.

Imari had a great ride with a 41something and 17th, especially considering we're at Nationals, he's raced track twice ever, and he's never done a 500 before. Noah rode a 41.0, but the starter wouldn't hold him how he asked, so he was leaning too much. Starter said something like, "I'm holding you straight up, and I can't hold you any other way." I'm thinking, "if the rider feels like they are leaning, maybe an inch or two to the right is ok, you know?" Noah's first pedal strokes were to get upright, and then he went. Bummer. But it was for 14th, and just a few hundredths separated that from top 8 or so. Not to bad for the "13" year old year. Hunter rode a strong ride, but was a bit off as well. 19th.

Royce's warm up was, um, sort of missed. We'll call it a coaching thing for this time. He ran a time quite a bit under what he's done repeatedly in training. He still wasn't all that far off from qualifying for the tournament.

That evening, Austin rode the points race. He had a teammate (Austin is guest riding for Metro VW for Nationals so they can do the team pursuit--silver medal last year--but it didn't work out, so...um, anyway) in the lead for awhile, so he was riding some strong D. They both ended up in a group that lapped the field, and Austin stuck it for 9th in the first race of Redemption Week.

I promised the boys we'd get ice cream at this italian place near our hotel if someone finished in the top ten on the day, but to the boy's disappointment, there was nothing dairy-free for Austin. Since he's the one who put the treat in reach, we're taking a rain check until we find a suitable spot.