A great old bike race story retold

Below is a email conversation I am re-posting per Andy's suggestion. John Schrams buddy Steve found this picture & turns out Andy Staub is in the pic. It's a small world. Enjoy

That's why biking is so cool is stories like this one below! Pretty similar to my Ice Man story for this year. The motto is Push Yourself, you will surprise yourself!

Dave

On Thu, Jan 29, 2009 at 1:01 PM, Andy Staub wrote:


Dave,
Maybe you can share this with our friends. That pic was taken at the Stony marathon and I raced as a 40 yr old beginner I believe. I was on time for the race and registered that day. I took my bib number and ankle chip back to my car to gear up and get ready. When getting in line for the race behind the younger categories. Our group was about 5 minutes away from start when I realized I left my ankle chip back in the car. I made a mad dash for the car to grab it. When riding back to the start line I heard the gun go off for my group. I was about 100 yards away when all of my group were leaving. Instead of stopping to talk to the officials to explain I just kept on pumping and all I remember was Bill Rushford from Tailwinds saying "Go get 'em Andy". This was about my third race of 06 after racing two in 05. Before that I had only raced a few times in the 90's only to be discouraged and frustrated. I had no idea Bill knew who I was so that gave me a huge boost. I was only so familiar with Stony at the time so I was a little raw. After crossing the start line a few minutes before the next age group, I had my work cut out for me. "How am I going to do two laps of this!" That was my only thought. I just kept hammering and did my best to stay on my bike. During the second lap I calmed down a little and started to catch some of the guys in my group. Little by little I was catching up. I never saw the first two guys obviously and by the end of the second lap I had no idea where I stood. I was really surprised (even as a beginner) to see that I had finished third.

The raffles after the race were great too. I won some prizes that I still use regularly.

Great to have those memories documented for me to recall. Thanks to who ever found it.

Andy