The race of truthiness
May 27, 2017 § 17 Comments
Okay, here are the numbers from my 2-person state team time trail today:
Time: 57:41.
Distance: 22.4 mi
Speed: 23.29 mph
Place: 6th out of six teams.
Overall: 4th slowest out of all races in all categories, including dead people.
As I begin the process of preparing for 2018, it is important to remember a couple of things, or one thing, actually, and it’s this: There’s hardly anywhere to go but up. Mathematically, there are a couple of issues, such as, in order to turn the fastest time of the day I’ll need to increase my average speed by 5 mph, which is kind of like saying I need to shave another fifteen seconds off my 100m time to beat Usain Bolt.
Of course the road to improvement is littered with defeat, but more importantly, with a ton of excuses, or a detailed Future Assistive Investigative List, as I like to call it.
FAIL Item No. 1. My partner sucked. She prevented me from achieving the true athletic potential of which I was truly capable. Lab testing, Strava, and extensive wind tunnel measurements proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that I was capable of averaging 23.30 mph over that course if I had been riding with anyone else named Merckx, Manzella, Rominger, Bos, Anquetil, etc.
FAIL Item No. 2. No tent. Unlike a lot of people who passed us so quickly that we couldn’t even tell what color their outfit was, we didn’t have a cool team tent. That cost us many podium spots.
FAIL Item No. 3. No shoe covers. That cost me a lot of time when Terry Steeves came ripping by at 40, even though he started twelve minutes back.
FAIL Item No. 4. Not enough preparation. I had only prepared for this event since January, missing out on the key lactate resistance threshold supercharging period of late December. My coach says that if you miss this vital period it is hard to recover for later no matter how much you train.
FAIL Item No. 5. Terrible Internet coach. My coach, Herr Doktor Professor William Stone, Ph.D., M.D., M.B.A., Diplomate in Cat Veterinary Science, kept telling me to eat only raw calf liver and Kibbles in the weeks leading up to the race. That cost me minutes. (But it saved a lot on the doping expenses.)
FAIL Item No. 6. Horrible crowd support. It is a fact that I race best when tens of thousands, preferably millions of people line the course screaming my name, holding up posters of me wearing a halo and a pope suit, and chalk the street with “Wanky Rules!”, “You’re the Best!”, “Get ’em, Tiger!”, “Nice Underwear!”, etc. Embarrassingly, my only fan was Rich Manzella, who advised me as I pedaled by that “You don’t totally suck, dude!”
FAIL Item No. 7. Inadequate warm-up. Unfortunately, I scrupulously followed the Team SKY warm-up protocol, detailed here. Looking at the chart’s 7th warm-up interval, which calls for 2 minutes at a 90 rpm cadence, I mistakenly did the entire 120 seconds at a cadence of 89 rpm, which ruined the entire race for me. Details matter, folks.
FAIL Item No. 8. Tires and tire pressure. My tires were either too wide or too narrow, and I’m certain they had either too much air or too little, all of which cost me many, many podium spots.
FAIL Item No. 9. Off-topic Facebook postings. The night before, instead of posting about my bikram yoga cool-downs and saddle positioning, I posted about my grandson. This resulted in minimal likes and smiley faces, which again cost me many, many podium spots. Many people say that.
Fail Item No. 10. Casey Maguire. This guy ruined it for me, saying crap like, “Have a good race,” “Good job,” etc. Got into my head and made it impossible for me to focus my normal killer instincts on the job at hand.
Anyway, watch out for 2018. I’ll be upgrading to the fastest pair of shoe covers made.
END
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Cycling in the South Bay 
Might I recommend BestBikeSpilt.Com. Just put your numbers in and no need to actually race. You can see how much you suck, quite scientifically. Unless you are racing for other reasons, of course.
I prefer to evaluate my suckage without the benefit of science. More touchy-feely.
This was great!! Thanks for sharing your TTT experience. I’m going to screen shot those fail items and use them as needed 🙂
ALWAYS BLAME YOUR PARTNER. Not limited to cycling.
Your category on the results page says “2-men Open.” Yet you refer to your partner as “she.”
Please explain.
Kristie and I raced with the dudes because there was no 2-person mixed category. That slowed us down A LOT.
So how did you do compared to the open 2-women teams?
We need a guest post from the woman who towed you for 57:41.
Perhaps an interview?
Two-person TTs are fun.
Her post-race comment: “It was nice dragging you around. Will be getting a new partner for ’18.”
New partner for when she turns 18? You got towed around for an hour by junior?!
Okay, 15.
Flailharious re-cap. I am so glad you sucked out loud and rebounded with clarity. Only 15 seconds off Usain Bolt’s WR. Be the Tortoise Wanky! The Hare made a deal half way to Hell.
Hahaha! If you can’t own it, why’d you drive it home?
To come last first you must show up, and hurt yourself for an hour. Much better than the posers du jour, who don’t want do get there team kit sweaty or dog forbid drip sweat on the 12k work of carbon. Congrats to you both.
2018 hey maybe I’ll find someone stupid enough to drag me around for an hour on my cross bike…
The practice made it all worth it. And actually, our practice time wasn’t too different from race day.
I think you almost matched my ITT time from a few years back.
I just hope you weren’t doing it on a TT bike.