The Month of Maypril is Here!

Yes, I said Maypril! The month which tortures the place in our souls longing for warmer, dryer weather and fair winds. This cruel month, running from mid-April to mid-May paws and gnaws at our expectations for all that is getting better we hope. I carry a whole year's wardrobe sampling in the back of my truck: from Carhart insulated oversuit to board shorts and sandals, tee shirts, hooded sweatshirts, 4-3 wetsuits, boots, and gloves, and foul weather gear. Eighty-one degrees on Saturday, 39 degrees on Sunday---change is the only thing which remains the same.

So into this crazy 30-some days we plunge. I'm still optimistic, still looking forward to what my piece of coast has to share.

The cycling season is rolling. The surfing scene is slow for me right now. I really hate cold water---anywhere in the forty-degree range. The water temperature at the Duck Research Pier is bumping 50 degrees just about now. The waiting won't be much longer.

The cycling race season left the start line on the wheels of our new club, Gruppo Sportivo Outer Banks, February 22nd at the Snowball Criterium #1 at the Virginia Beach Sportsplex, a beautiful, flat, oval-ish, close to one mile loop. The wind blew around 20 mph, west/southwest with steady rain and mid-forty degree air for the C race. We fielded 7 riders in this race, all about to feel what it means to be "hardmen" in bike racing.

Most of these riders were new to road bike racing on this day. I moved in and around the vehicles which carried us all up from our warm, dry North Carolina coastal homes some 90 miles south. I looked closely at faces framed in an air of doubt, unsureness,
trepidation, and then slowly transforming to a steeled resolve, facing this new challenge posed by horrid weather and a multitude of competitors, many concealing the same seeds of self-doubt.

These new racers without pre-race rituals, without race tactics born of knowing what to do when this or that happens---they still answered the call. Their energy charged and lifted all around them. I wasn't racing this day, but was so compelled to witness their charge around the course, I just had to be there. We all inspire each other this way. Their race was our race as it were. To Rob, Matt, Joe, Randy, Art, Kevin, and Wayne, you all were unforgettable in this race. Three placed in the top ten---all finished first in our eyes for answering the start and being there for the finish.