Arnold Classic

A cold sunny day with a temperature about 30 degrees when I left the house with Amy to roll downtown Columbus for this first ever Arnold Classic event.
We arrive in plenty of time to finish getting dressed and get registered, we thought. This is NO lie, I waited in line for over 40 minutes to just get a race number even though I pre-registered. Wait... I thought Fat Rabbit was running this race, that looks like Team Columbus' trailer....needless to say, I only got a 15 min warm up, enough time to get around the course and see what it was like.
Well, I get lined up in a great position at the start line far right, ooops, no oh um we are not starting now, we' can take another 10 minutes to ride around says the judge. Another lap or two around and I am starting to get pissed. This is stupid. Well, I come back around after two laps and my group is all lined up, well I pull the jerk card out and nudge and sneak my way back up to the front line. I was amazed how fast everyone went out for the start. It' hard this early in the season to know what your fitness level is and everyone was suffering I think in the cold. Anyway, I managed a great finish, Third. There were so many people in our group, since they combined the CAT 4, CAT 5, Juniors and Women all in one. So, how do race officials keep track, well they don't at all, I guess. The results had me as not in the top 10, but I went to argue for a top 4 at least. I know I was there, Whitlock was right in front of me on the last corner and I was on his wheel, his surge was better in the last 300 meters or so. With a better warm up I might have a better finish. Arnold himself even showed up to let us roll around the course after I finished racing. Everyone that races or doesn't was there to cheer on those that raced. Jason J. took some great pics (slideshow) and I think I even got on the Arnold highlight video camera.