My birthday came, and I wasn’t a year older. I’ve already been a year older for the last 9+ months.
That is one of the oddities that comes with having a USCF racing license. Your racing age changes on January 1st, not on your birthday. Since being asked your age is most common in the racing context, in your head your racing age becomes your actual age. That’s how it works for me at least.
So when I’m asked my age in another setting — say the doctor’s office — I automatically respond with my racing age.
There’s a benefit to this. When my birthday comes, there’s no shock about suddenly being a ‘year older’. The downside is that I’m a ‘year older’ 9 months earlier than I need to be. Of course in actuality no one becomes a year older in an instant.
This season I got the ‘how old are you again?’ question quite a few times. Regardless of how fast I go, there’s no denying the gray hair once I take my helmet off. Once I was accused of having ‘old guy legs’. I think it was meant as a compliment.
The real shock this year was realizing that some of the guys in the race were about the same age as my son who just entered college last month. I decided that as long as I could beat them I was OK with that.
Über die Brücke 
Happy Birthday! (belated). Let’s get together for some wine.
I’d rather have people think I’m older than I am because I have lots of gray hair than be afflicted with my genetic hair loss. But, like many things, we aren’t given a choice when the genetic sequences are molded at conception.
Damnit.
BTW, I’d rather be a fit-as-hell-40-something than a fat-lazy-20-something any day! 😀
What’s even worse is for the UCI CX race I did last weekend, they went by your racing age for as of Dec. 2009!
“RACING AGE FOR THIS SEASON OF CYCLO-CROSS IS BASED ON YOUR RACING AGE ON JANUARY 1, 2009 (AGE ON DEC 31, 2009).”
I guess this is because the season extends between calendar years, but gawd it made me feel ‘mentally’ old when it listed me a year older on my results. Just think how much older I’d have ‘felt’ if I had a birthday in Jan instead of in May!
Oh, and happy B-day! Does being two years older it make you rethink wanting to race CX?
If you haven’t already heard, Shawn Adams is putting on a CX Skills Clinic this Sat from 11am-3pm. How’s the CX bike working out? I was racing a C’dale disc just that one up until this season (although mine was a 47mm).
-gb
>> RACING AGE FOR THIS SEASON OF CYCLO-CROSS IS BASED ON YOUR RACING AGE ON JANUARY 1, 2009 (AGE ON DEC 31, 2009)
Yikes … I guess I have to make that mental adjustment a little sooner than I thought.
I’ve been on the CX bike only a few times so far. We’ll see on Sunday. I expect it to be ugly. I may try Shawn’s clinic on Sat.
>> we aren’t given a choice when the genetic sequences are molded at conception.
yeah, I started getting gray hair around age 29 I think (hmm … right about the time my son was born. coincidence?).
At least your daughter shouldn’t inherit your genetic hair loss 🙂
tris-its your look!! Shine-on you crazy diamond!!
Brian,
I will see you saturday if you are going or sunday. To add to Gary’s comment, the ’09 age is because if anyone is going worlds.Like anyone we know really is that comes to B.A. cross? Maybe you someday.
By the way, I would suspect you to do A-masters on sunday. Is that what you were thinking? Ask Ray for advice, he just totally skipped the “C” field and did only 2 “B” races.
Robert … I’m planning on going to the clinic on Sat, then race on Sun. yeah, I’ll jump in with the A’s … at the back to start off … and most likely finish 🙂