Love at First Race part 1

I remember when I was younger, my parents would take me to this race called The Tour of Somerville.  They used to take me because my uncle had won that race back in the 50s.  For the first couple years, I found cycling to be boring.  I didn't understand it and I didn't know what to think about it.  Then after a couple years, I asked my parents about getting into this sport that I did not understand yet felt a pull towards.  The first road bike I got was a Giant OCR 3.  It was heavy, the big chainring was bent and I started out with rat traps, but it worked.  I was so excited to have a road bike that I would go through school all day thinking about getting on my bike when I got home.  I still did not understand the sport that much, but what I did know was that when I got on the bike, it was no longer a person and a bike as if we were separate.  The bike and I became one machine.  I walked into the bike shop and asked when I could do my first race.  The owner of the shop told me that I had 3 weeks until the next race.  He then gave my my first cycling jersey.  I started riding 5 days a week.  My parents would not let me ride that far from my house so they planned out a 2.5 mile with a .6 mile steep hill.  I would do 4 or 5 laps on that.  This was my preparation for my first race that I didn't know how to race in a sport that I did not understand.  This was all the preparation that I needed though.  No pressure, no expectations.  It was out of pure love for riding a bike.  I remember the way that I felt on those rides.  I head a sense of freedom.  I felt a connection that I have never felt before and it was not just the connection to my bike that I had mentioned before.  I felt connected to the universe.  There was a rush of adrenaline that cannot be described as I pictured myself as one of the great cyclists while I road my Giant OCR 3 with a bent chain ring and rat traps on my 2.5 mile loop.  This was only the start to my connection and my love for the sport and I had no idea where it go from there.