Me at the Rock Hill Velodrome

I haven’t been scared in a long time. I mean really scared. The kind of fear that causes your heart to beat fast and your body to tense up. This week I joined a few of my kids and a group of triathletes at the Giordana Velodrome in Rock Hill, South Carolina, who were taking part in a certification class.  Sometimes I am amazed at what a mom will do for her kids (more about that later).

The course began in a classroom at 9 am going over the rules of cycling at the Velodrome. Watching the screen as Kyle (our instructor) showed what can happen when cyclists don’t follow rules, I began to sweat. Naively, I had seen people (even kids) riding on the banked track at the Velodrome and assumed that it must not be as difficult as it looked. They made it look easy, in fact. Yet, as I looked at the screens and saw some of the accidents that can happen when people aren’t careful on the track, I started to wonder what the heck I was doing there. [Read more…]