Home meet

We had our home meet of this season last Sunday. This was a pretty packed meet, with all novice and standard races done in one day. I still have a big gap with the standard masters, which is the most competitive group with 8 starters on the line.

The highlight of the meet belongs to Ruri. After winning all her individual races and staying there in the challenge up races, she was ready to get the Open race back from the Washington girl, who out sprinted both her and her teammate at last meet in a surprise attack. Again, she was starting from the back of the rolling start pace line, and Ruri took no time to start passing up, very aggressively, so she can join her teammate in the lead pack. At the beginning corner of the second lap, she stepped on a pylon (applying a technique called passing between the pylon) and went down. I was stand right where she fell, and everyone was screaming for her to get up and chase the pack, which by this time as gone about half a lap ahead. By the time she get back to her feet and started rolling with speed, the pack were 3/4 lap ahead of her. Her teammate started stall the pace, and Ruri started gaining on the pack. Everyone was cheering her to catch up with the lead pack. At about 3 laps to go, she finally got to about 10 feet to the lead pack, which consisted of her teammate and the Washington girl. The started sprinting for the final position just before Ruri could rejoin the pack, and it was just out of reach for her at that point. Still, everyone was very impressed with her come back from behind effort and I think she learned a good lesson, one that would not be there if she had just went smooth and won the race. So this is a good fall to have (other than a quarter size rash:-)

I'll try to get some photos up later.