The Atheist Training Bible for Old Bicycle Racers, Chapter 1: Introduction

January 8, 2014 § 28 Comments

I still remember the time I got really serious about masters cycling, when I thought about getting coached. The next morning, after the hangover had worn off, I went back to my usual ways, but that evening of surfing the Internet was a very intense period in my life. That was in 2005.

A few years later I got the best coaching advice ever, from Ron Peterson. Ron is a top-notch SoCal coach who has taken countless wankers out of obscurity and into the global limelight of parking lot crit podiums. Here’s what Ron told me: “Seth, you’re uncoachable.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Because you’re incapable of taking someone’s advice on any topic without either ignoring it, arguing about it, changing it, or doing it wrong.”

Self-evaluation

If you’re wondering whether the Wanky Training Program is right for you, please take the following quiz.

  1. Don’t fucking tell me what to do. Yes/No
  2. I don’t care what you think. Yes/No
  3. I’m pack fodder. Yes/No
  4. I’m delusional. Yes/No
  5. I’m old. Yes/No
  6. I’m cheap. Really fucking cheap. Yes/No
  7. I’m lazy. Yes/No

If you answered “Yes” to all of the above, you are a perfect candidate for the WTP.

Conceptual fundamentals

Before embarking on the WTP, it is important to grasp certain concepts. First, you aren’t any good and you never will be. This is the core principle for the WTP. Your essential lameness has been proven (in most cases) by years and years of mediocre results. You are better than some, but far worse than the best. No one who matters fears you, and no one who fears you matters.

Second, you are old. Age isn’t “just a number.” It’s an absolute statement about your rapid mental and physical decline, both of which are taking you on a deafening plunge towards a rather immediate death. Your best years aren’t simply behind you, they’re so far in the rearview mirror that they can’t be seen without bifocals and a telescope.

Third, winning is beyond your grasp, mentally and physically. All the drugs and all the training and all the coaching would never instill in you the gritty mental toughness required to win a bike race. You aren’t just physically weak, you are emotionally soft. When global warming throws the world into a cataclysmic war, you will be one of its very first victims.

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Tommorrow — Chapter 2: The Problem with Training Plans

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