Tour of California: First Place!

Today, I found myself in first place in the Tour of California, a pro cycling event.  Here's how it happened.

Tina and I spent Valentine's Day in Napa.  We stayed at the Wine Country Inn which is a homey bed and breakfast in St. Helena.  We ate our Valentine's dinner at Meadowood, and it was fabulous.  One of the courses was poached beef tenderloin with an onion and mustard sauce.  Sounds pretty ordinary, right?  It turns out that "poached" means sous vide which is a cooking style that makes the meat extremely tender and juicy.  I literally cried it was so good.  I've eaten a lot of good things before, but this was easily the best.

Anyway, we were in Napa for the weekend, and I needed to get a workout in.  I set off for a run in the rain.  I stumbled upon a few spectators as I turned onto Silverado Trail from Lodi Lane.  I knew that the Tour was going on, but I didn't know that it was going through Napa.  A section of Silverado Trail was closed for the event, so I was happy to run along it and try to see the riders.  I turned a corner and found a couple hundred spectators massed together, waiting for the riders to show up.   I felt a little awkward running in front of that may people, but there wasn't any room to run behind them.  I picked up my pace a bit and ran down the middle of the lane.

"You're in first place!" yelled someone from the crowd.

I ran faster.