Anticipating the Red Light
Tim helping me get my bike ready. Photo by Jason Tanaka.
You’d be lying if you tell yourself that you’ve never waited at a stop light, anticipating that red light to change.
Everyone does it at one point or another: You pull up to a light and patiently wait, until you become aware of the seconds ticking by as the light won’t change. You start looking over at the crossing light, which annoyingly stays green longer than it should. It actually crosses your mind to put the car in park to run out and push the walk button, hoping to make the light change faster. Just as you swear under your breath, you see the cross light turn yellow, and you lift your foot off the brake just slightly, only to be affronted with a two second delay before your light turns green. When that glorious, refreshing color finally clicks on, you goose the gas a little too much and lurch away from that prison of an intersection. Half a block down the road, you realize how ridiculously worked up you got over such a mundane situation.
I’m waiting at a red light right now. Except it’s not one that turns green. It just goes out. And there’s no such thing as gassing it too much coming off this line.
This light is the testing red eye belonging to the start line that is WMRRA‘s first round this coming weekend. Having just seen the tip of the iceberg at 2Fast‘s New Racer School, practicing starts and participating in a full race simulation, gridding up for my first Novice race has become a very large, looming shadow on the horizon. It’s the final destination after a long-awaited vacation, or a three day weekend after a very long week.
This weekend can’t come soon enough.
