The Way I See It

1994 was supposed to be my "comeback" year. I just wanted to beat my body to within an inch of failure and see what would come of it.
I entered 30 races and re-visited most of my favorite competitions in Washington and Idaho. I'd been doing Tuesday afternoon races with the club and won my first bicycling prize in a non-military competition...a sprint lap at the Spokane raceway! (I won a hat).

I made friends with an older club member, Mitch LaMoure, who'd raced since the mid-70's and, as a teenager, was an old friend of 3-Time Tour de France winner Greg LeMond. Mitch is also a very successful bicycle frame builder, and owned a shop in Cheney, Washington, now moved to the Olympic Peninsula in Northwest Washington Lamourebikes.com

I ran my last Bloomsday (world's largest run), and although I wasn't as fast as 1991, I ran a respectable 48:07 for the 7.46 miles, even though I lost over a minute at the start, stuck behind slower runners. I was showing great improvement from 1992, finishing 491 of 55,193 runners, 109 out of 2554 in my age category. In the annual Fairchild AFB Pride run, I placed second. It was my best finish in that race, but the slowest time I'd ever run. My running was never the same after 1993.

I made my return to the Ritzville Biathlon, in Ritzville, Washington, which consisted of a short 12 1/2 mile bicycle race on rolling hills, and a 5 kilometer run. I did this race in 1992 and finished 24th of 260 competitors, so of course, I wanted to beat that.

All I have for this is the newspaper clippings.
In the photo of the start (top), I'm the second from the right, with the funny looking pointed white helmet, purchased in Japan in August 1988, and raced with for two years. I hadn't yet mastered my narrow triathlon handlebars, so I was at a disadvantage on the bicycle, and probably lost a minute to the others. I'm still wearing my bright "rainbow jersey" which I had custom made in Korea in 1989.

Michael McCoy, who'd beaten me in every run at Fairchild Air Force Base since 1990, won this race, but I was 4th (out of 258 competitors), just 1:47 behind him. He usually beat me by much larger margins, and with similar equipment, it would have been a close race. It was extrememly windy that day, so the times were slow. We started with a tail wind, and cresting one of the first hills in the race, at 66 kph (41 miles an hour), after which the road did a sharp left turn and went into a hard headwind for the rest of the ride. I had McCoy in my sights about 1/2 mile into the run, which means he didn't have much of a lead coming off the bicycle. It was fun...oh, and in the upper right, there you see me dismounting the bicycle in the transition from the bicycle to the run. I guess they thought I looked funny so they took lots of pictures of me. My name is on that sheet somewhere, in the 25-29 year age category. Miimii did not attend.

 June 4, 1994