Twilight Criterium

Did last week last forever to you? It sure did to me and Keith. This was our last full week of work before our anniversary trip that starts mid-next week, and let's just say that it was a struggle getting through the week. And here it is, Sunday night, and I'm stuck at work wrapping up details before we leave for our trip. This weekend was good, but not quite as fun as last weekend. You see, last weekend we went to Athens to see the Schells (the full set, not just half this time), and headed downtown for the Twilight Criterium. If you're not a cyclist (I'm not, unless you count sweating my arse off in Spin class), a criterium is similar to a race run on a track, but instead of runners, we have cyclists, and instead of an atheletic track, we have a closed course in a city. Wikipedia does a much better job describing it, click here.  Now that you're caught up, Keith adn I have been meaning to go to the TW since its held in our favorite town, and this year we pulled ourselves together enough to go.

Saturday was a rainy day, and we feared getting soaked, but the rain thankfully stopped for a few hours. We headed downtown and found a good spot along the course.

At this point we were behind the start line. Look how many cyclists!

We had to wait about 15 minutes before it started, so we had a snack.

We weren't all that happy with that spot, so we moved to a spot past the starting point. We did that with just a few minutes to spare, and soon the pace car came our way...

The crowd was buzzing with anticipation. As a sidenote, I can't believe BarCode is still in business. Look behind the crowd.

We're still waiting for the cyclists...

Grady sees movement on the course and is pumped!

Here they come!

WHOOOO!

And there they go.

The course is not very long, so we'd see them all rush past, then we'd have a minute or so with nothing. At that point people are allowed to cross the road, so Dada went across the road to get a picture of us. There Grady had not yet seen that his beloved Dada wasn't with us. Shortly after this picture was taken he did notice, and I had my hands full for a minute.

So while I'm motioning to Keith the international gesture for get over here now! But, cyclists were whizzing by, so I, and distraught Grady, had to wait.

Keith made it back to our side, and consoled the G-baby. I took the camera and got down to the boys level. This is what the race looked like to them.

This race was a little over 20 minutes, and after that we headed to meet up with the Schells. Barbie got a great shot of us Ellermans.

And we took to people watching. Gotta love a college town, where plastic solo cups, neon beer signs and 12-year old looking college kids abound.

Besides gawking at the young kids hanging out of upper story windows and having alternating thoughts of oh my gawd, that's not safe!  and oh lord, I feel so old for thinking that, we watched other races. The hand-bikers were inspiring, and the kiddie race was adorable! Tricycles and training wheels are welcome, so guess who will be participating next year? You betcha. Now you'll see a series of pictures of different people holding different babies in different positions. Once we took the boys out of the strollers, they realized taller is better, and did not want to go back to their lower eye-level views. And these boys are heavy, so there was a good bit of switching holding arms, trading babies and leaning against the fence.

Finally it was time to head home and we got a little cuddle time with Barbie before calling it a night. Keith and I had grand plans of heading back to downtown to grab a drink and do more college kid gawking, but once we got home and got the boys to bed, we realized how ridiculous that seemed, and we settled on some great conversation with the Schells.

So mark your calendars, peeps. The Ellerman duo will be making their cycling debut next April.