“A celebration of life…”

 OK. All right. I take it back. Yesterday I was the conquering hero, defeater of Brady Street, vanquisher of fatigue  and all mortal ailments. Again I fall prey to karmic retribution. Rising from bed to head to church I suddenly was aware of the powerful soreness in my quads. Now, I’ve noticed before how my legs handle my regular cycling with ease but on those occasions when I have put a little effort into it, particularly now that I’m riding a road bike instead of a mountain bike or 3-speed, my thighs ache a little.

Lunch: Bourbon chicken and fried rice
and a banana-strawberry smoothie.

 It hadn’t occurred to me before how flat running focuses so intensely on the calves and shins and cycling – and uphill running, I learned – hammers those quads. So today I pay for my audacious gloating. Live and learn. Or, in my case, live and live. Learning sometimes evades me.

Well, as you know, I finished the Bix yesterday. My first Bix. I don’t think it will be my last. Funny sidebar: My mom says today she thought it was ironic that they named the race for Bix Beiderbecke, a jazzman who died young of alcoholism and related effects, a guy who wouldn’t run across the street (unless there was a free bottle, Dad chimed in). Of course the race is tied to the jazz festival named in Bix’s honor and there’s more to Bix than Mom’s distilled take, but it was a humorous observation.

So, the post-race festivities were something else. Several thousand runners converged on the parking lots and lawn behind the Quad City Times for refreshments and story-swapping, camaraderie and music. Drained as I was, the first order of business was hydration. I grabbed a water and a Coke, found a shady spot behind a parked semitrailer and rested. Eventually I meandered about the grounds, grabbing another soda (Fanta orange), a grape freezer pop from Whitey’s and a couple packs of Golden Oreos.

There were some interesting stories and comments as I wove through the amassed runners. The best, I thought, was this from a guy to his friend:

"This is like a celebration of life for all of us here today, just for surviving the Bix."

Eventually my meanderings took me toward the beer tables and what I assume was a beer tent – a huge inflatable dome with open sides, packed with people. The lines were long and it appeared there was no charge for a cup of brew (huh, maybe that explains the lines). I decided to forgo the beer. But as I was hanging out by a leg of the inflata-dome a stocky, tanned, bald guy dressed in black approached.

“Hey, did you pick that up on the race route?” he asked, pointing to the pink headband wrapped around my right bicep.

“Yeah,” I said. I wanted to launch into an explanation of the Street Scavenger blog but held off.

“That’s mine,” the guy says with a laugh, and starts to explain that he and his buddies all were wearing them. He motioned behind him to his two pals, each wearing a matching pink headband and waving back at us.

“Cool. You want it back?” I asked lamely.

“Yeah.” I handed it over with a smile (I really was happy to return it, if a little disappointed, too). “I’ll buy you a beer.”

We laughed and he headed back to his buds. I never got a beer, free or otherwise.

I did still have a thin white headband, not the sweat-absorbing kind but the rubber-backed style for holding back lots of hair. Maybe I’ll wash it and leave it on the free-exchange table in the lobby of my building.

Well, as mentioned previously, I had an awkward encounter with a 6-foot Elmo. In the final mile – I can’t recall now if it was just before the Brady Street descent or just after – I passed Elmo and Grover (I think it was Grover) and I was inexplicably struck with the idea of entertaining the crowd. I did a U-turn, ran up to Elmo and wiggled my fingers in his left side for a second and said, “Tickle, tickle, tickle.”

I turned and continued on my way. But I could hear jeers behind me. What’s this? I thought it was funny. I was trying to bring a little cheer to a guy who was probably pretty miserable in that costume about that point. I guess the spectators thought it was just mean. There were comments about how hot the poor guy must be and a few sympathetic awwws. Feeling like a true schmuck I U-turned again and ran back to poor Elmo and tried to shake his hand and offered a sincere apology and assurance that the tickling was meant in fun and to make fun. By that point I was so embarrassed that I tuned out whatever reaction my attempt elicited in the crowd.

D’Oh!

 After some free refreshments I headed to the mall to write, eat and cool off. I allowed myself to be lured in by free samples and had lunch from Bourbon Street Grill. About $9 bought a huge plate of bourbon chicken and fried rice and a banana-strawberry smoothie. It was really tasty.

As I wrote I received a text from my old friend Paul, who had just arrived at the river and was dipping his tires in the water to conclude the RAGBRAI. Very cool. We had planned to get together and I picked him up at the luggage trucks on the campus of St. Ambrose University. It was pretty awesome to see so many cyclists gathered and unwinding and packing and picking up luggage and unfolding wet tents and whatnot.

Paul and I returned to Galesburg and went to Budde’s Pizza and Spirits to see if I could win that Fat Tire bike. Alas, I won neither bike nor T-shirt. And my attempt to claim a shirt for an absent friend whose name was drawn was denied. I’ll have to see if I can just buy one outright. It’s a really sweet shirt.