011: My day at the estate...

So here’s some more stuff that was part of my Granogue weekend:

So for the last few years the race has fallen on Monkey’s birthday. She is the best wife in the world and loves the race, this sport. While many strive to have a peaceful and relaxing birthdays she has spent the last, dear god I don’t know how many Granogue races, busting her hump.

Yeah she gets to celebrating with 500 of her favorite Mtb racers, but it’s never peaceful. In recent years Monkey has become the prize Guru. The steady joke is that on her birthday she’s giving away tons more stuff than she is getting. This year I got her a cake as a surprise.
It was a sideways cake.
I also got her a couple of nice presents that were wrapped in snowflake wrapping paper. It’s what I grabbed as I walked out the door in the dark Saturday morning. She didn’t notice the christmas paper and was stoked with her gifts.
Granogue racers sang to Diane 3x this weekend.. That was rad.


This year, with the subtle encouragement of Charlie:
We hosted our first running race ever. Tom and I were all geeked out about the start, do we need to seed you? who gets to go to the front line? Stuff cyclist bug out about. The runners were the coolest ever. They milled around, super mellow. We gave a :45 second count down, they told us we didn’t need to do that… These guys were super cool and super laidback. The feedback from the run has been outstanding, and we are planning on doing it again next year. Now I will say this, the runners didn’t get into the push up contest for prizes, or the thumb wrestling tournaments for socks like the mountain bikers do, but we’ll bring them around.

In 15 or so years of Granogue races, I have only actually gotten to do the mountainbike race 2 times. I didn’t start out as one of the directors, but worked up over the years. I actually got out of running the race for a few years, but fell back into it and don’t see myself out of it anytime soon. At the end of the day, in my role, I don’t feel like I could be out on the course for 2.5 hours, while the race was happening.
I’m just too much of a control freak. SO, we dreamed up the mountain bike Time Trial which w had on Saturday, so I could actually get to do the race at Granogue. We had 12 hearty souls turn out for the event. I will admit, I didn’t think anyone would really race, but it was a ton of fun. A big thanks to everyone that came out to play with me this day… It was pretty cool, my pre race remarks were, “everyone here is a bawler, so go have fun, there are no course marshals so watch the road crossings, and have fun…” awesome.

I rode as a member of a two man team with Jeffy. He had to wait for me on two of the three climbs. We crashed on top each other and ended up in fourth place. Hardest 17:03 I ever rode in my life. I was grateful for every second of it. As there really is no benefit of riding as a two man team in a mtb tt, other than getting to heckle/encourage/crash each other, all of which we did, we were scored with other riders.Up the final climb, we caught young Scotty, and as we came into the finishing straight, he jumped and tried to sprint me. I luckily held him off. Never sprint the big dudes…

Our hope is to grow this as well for 2011. Les Leech, international man of mystery said it himself, it was so much fun, people that missed it, really missed out.

Sunday was the mountain bike race. It was hot, but outstanding. It was going to be a great day. So I dressed for the occasion.
Part of this was to celebrate the day, part of it was a just for fun, part of it was really easy: You have a question? Go see the guy in the tie. I was easy to find.

At the beginning of one of the races, I was giving my pre race remarks, talking about our prize list and one of the women, Marilyn, said she wanted to win my tie. I told her, finish in the top three and you got it. She crossed the line in third, and I happily passed the tie on to her. She proudly wore it on the podium.

A bit later, a shall forever remain unnamed female competitor came up to me and whispered in my ear, “she got your tie, I want your underwear…” She smiled laughing in a manner that made me know she was totally joking, but I admit I was caught off guard on that one, and did blush. A lot.

I wish I had said something about going commando or something, but the comment, which was very funny and well timed, completely caught me off guard. Well played.

Just before the start of the elite/expert races, The DuPonts were heading out for a drive. The riders quickly parted like the red sea and gave a thunderous applause as the family came through… NICE!

Also pretty awesome my 3 nephews did the kids race, all did great, and my neice she was the smartest of all, and collected a prize for hanging out. It was great to see my family out this day...
Finally one of my favorite traditions at Granogue is that all the pros the we happily hand some cash to, have to come up to the podium and get their picture taken together. There’s no take the money and run here. We like to think of it as the champions pictures of the year. Year book kind of stuff. Here they are for 2010:
Not only did Aaron win the race, he also was our push up champion for 2010. That’s the real title people via for…

So that’s my story and I’m sticking to it. Thanks to all of you that supported our race, as a racer, or a volunteer, or a friend… Thanks.

Best to you.

Respect.
Fatmarc