The Whole Enchilada '20: The aftermath

I stand there just past the finish line looking at the stream of drool hanging from my mouth.

That'll do, pig.

Remember to turn off my Wahoo, catch my breath, head back down towards the car.  Run into some friends before I can get too far...

"Great race,  Dicky."

I dunno.  People could start at any time and no one will know the true outcome until 3-4:00 PM... kinda.  Even the promoter had said the final results wouldn't be available until sometime on Monday.

Walk past the timing area... and everyone  is staring at some screens... with results?  Hmmm.  I'd heard some promoters weren't going to do this at their races to keep people from crowding and breathing on each other.  I can't resist the temptation.  I look.

Someone had won the single speed category and my result isn't even on the screen.  I mean, his is the only SS result on the screen.  I'll go to the car, change, grab a mask, and ask what's what then.

"Hey, I don't wanna be that guy, but if I finished over twenty minutes ago, should my result be up on the screen?"

"Yeth, it should be up seconds after you cross the line."

Nope.

So they look up my number and...

"Is your name Wendy?"

He didn't say "Wendy," but something that was obviously a woman's name. 

"No, Rich Dillen."

Two guys scratch their heads and click at a keyboard and...

"Everything should be good now."

Okay.  I'm now in second place SS... which doesn't necessarily make sense to me.  I started two minutes early, and no single speeder ever passed me.  He woulda had to start around 8:02 AM or earlier to be finished before me with his results on the board when I came across the line.

Whatever.  Strange things happen.  I don't know Ben DiEduardo from Winston Salem.  He could be the next Nino Schurter.

But then I'm hanging out talking to other frands, and they were at the finish line before anyone had finished.  They saw the first fast guys come in, and I was all up in it.  They never saw another single speeder finish.

Dammit.  Back to the timing area...

"Hey, I don't wanna be that guy again, but..."

I tell them the whole story.  What I saw, what I know, what my friends saw, the works.

"Okay.  We should have it all worked out before we post the official results Monday."

Let it be known that this isn't the first time I had to argue my way into a first place I actually earned.  It is the first time that I had to do it with so little on the line.  This was the first year they put a single speed class in the race, and it looks like there's less than a handful of SS Whole Enchilada finishers.  Kinda bummed about that, because after last year's event there was enough clamor in support of adding a single speed class that they actually listened and did it.

They built it.  We didn't come.

So Sunday, I refresh the results page every once in a while.  Nothing.  Obvs.

Monday, the same.

Bill Nye and I went out on a low hanging fruit in-town ramble and ended up at The Spoke Easy for a beer.  While sitting there in the sun, I get a FaceBook notification.

Gotta love Jerry the Cat.  Doesn't race but that doesn't mean he doesn't wanna see how his little friends did at the bike game over the weekend.  Oddly enough, they never posted the link to their results on their FB page or the event page... or an email.  Just on Jerry's random post on a local MTB community page.

So they did manage to fix a lot of the results.  There were a fair number of people entered in The Whole who bailed and took the Half split... but still crossed the line messing up the results.  There were also quite a few people who missed turns but ended up back on the course unknowingly (in once case knowingly) missing huge chunks of trail.  The actual top five finishers weren't even originally in the top ten.

Anyhoo, my result hadn't changed.  I was still in second.  I was dying to know what had happened.

So, I looked for Ed DiEduardo of Winston Salem on FaceBook, found him, sent him a message...

The only thing that made me laugh louder was when he asked me, "Cool.  What did I win?"

So obvs I posted this in the thread and thankfully the promoters at USNWC made the change.  That said, I was first outta two in the single speed class, so I'm a winner and also second to last.  I'm still glad I tried at something, and I managed to finish 14th overall with only two people over 40 in front of me (even tho they didn't stick the single speeders in the overall results?)

Most importantly, I got to "race" my bike.  My drug of choice.  There was adrenaline pumping in my veins.  The thrill of the chase.  Seeing my fifty one year old heart still capable of cranking it up a notch when necessary. 

I'm not ded like 26" wheels and single speeds and also racing (which mebbe is coming back to some sort of life).