<em>Cinco de Mayo</em>

I bought Mags a mountain bike last year.  It’s an older Gary Fisher X-Cal frame with mostly new parts.  Twenty nine inch wheels, of course.  I made her promise me that she would enter one race this year if I bought it for her.  She made good on that promise on Saturday, but that was still in question Friday night. 

What if I crash?  What if I can’t climb the hills?  What if I get a flat tire?  What if another girl punches me?  She was going through every rational, and irrational, scenario she could think of. 

To make a long story short, she races a lot like me:  She climbs better than she descends.  She traded places with another woman for much of the race, gapping her on the climbs, getting gapped on the descents.  On the last climb she passed her for good.  She gave it her all, which was enough to hold off her competitor and she won her category by about two seconds.   

On the way home from the race we stopped by the Cinco de Mayo celebration in West Valley City.  There were mariachi bands, soccer matches, and a Carlos Santana cover band.  Mags’ favorite tamale maker had a booth where we got our post-race meals and settled in for the real entertainment.  They were going to crown the 2007 Miss Telemundo Utah right there for us to see.  There were about fifteen contestants, Utah residents but from all over Latin America.  They danced about on stage in their formal evening gowns like you’d expect at any beauty pageant.  Mucho caliente!  A crowd of Mexican men, and they were mostly men, gathered in front of the stage, to show their appreciation.  But did I mention it was cold?  And windy? 

There was a dandy of an announcer there, I suppose a Mexican version of Bert Parks, in a scarf and a wool coat, and he and his female counterpart took turns asking the girls serious questions like “If you had a chance to speak with President Bush, what would you tell him?”  and “If you could live anywhere in the world, where would it be?”  (To which the contestant quipped “Anywhere warmer than here.”)  That’s when the hosts let the girls to put coats on. 

The first two contestants were Mexican girls who were younger than the others.  One had braces.  They had a hard time formulating multi-syllable responses to the questions.  I don’t know if it was nerves or the cold, but they were shivering.  Then a Brazilian girl who was showing the most skin struggled with her Spanish, which was likely her third language.  She was the only blonde of the bunch.  Things got considerately more exciting when a girl from Venezuela got up.  The wind picked up as she was halfway through telling us why education was so important to her and it blew over a couple of faux classical columns behind her on stage.  Fake boughs of ivy were flying everywhere.  Then another gust got hold of the lattice back drops.  Four of them went down like dominos.  Through it all, the Venezuelan girl hardly missed a beat.  If they were giving an award for best composure I would have given it to her. 

After they crowned the winner, I think she was Dominican; another mariachi band started setting up.  Their sombreros were so huge that I thought the wind would carry away the trumpet player ala Mary Poppins.  They started throwing mini soccer balls to the crowd and I got hit squarely in the nose by one when I wasn’t looking.  Some guy picked it up while I was checking for blood so I lost my souvenir.  It was junk anyway so I’m not disappointed.  And I’m undoubtedly making somebody happy as there’s some guy out there right now telling his amigos how he caught this ball right after it bounced off a tall gringo’s nose.

Oh yeah, I raced on Saturday too.  I felt pretty good for the first two laps and was in third place after Brad had to stop to pick up his forgotten camelback.  Then I worked with a teammate on the last lap and made up some time over 7-mile pass.  At the bottom of the pass I saw Jay, all the way from Jackson, a couple minutes ahead of me.  Rich was further ahead.  I chased Jay the rest of the way and stole second place from him in a final sprint.  I passed him two feet before the finish line and felt my quadriceps in both legs cramp up when I crossed the line.  Afterward Jay said he never knew I was coming so I feel a little sheepish about beating him in a sprint he didn’t know he was a part of, but hey, that’s racing.

I stole this photo from Rich.