Fighting the 40KM Time Trial — Man Against Himself
An homage to a great book, a bad time trial, Guy Ritchie, Snatch, and Oasis
Film school set me up for life with understanding the basic conflicts. (I probably should have learned that in 8th grade literature, but, frankly, I was more interested in what the Ramones were up to, to care — and it sounds cooler to say you learned it in film school). Those being:
- Human against nature — fighting the bear, the earthquake, the lightning, etc…
- Human against human — the prick who runs over your garbage pail covers, and constantly parks in front of your house while his driveway remains empty, and I guess evil dictators, and giant corporations too, but mostly the first thing.
- Human against self — this is a juicy one! Getting in your own way. Your inner conflict. As was stated by the philosophizer Henry Rollins “my mind hates my body, my body hates my soul! I close my eyes and fight, inside my own black hole”.
WOW — that feels extreme. But certainly at a lesser level, when you come away from a bike race, telling anyone who asks, and some people who didn’t “I sucked! I was the worst!” is sort of an example of the fight against yourself that may or may not happen in a 40KM Time Trial. Or any Time Trial.
Truly I say unto you, I have met guys that have crossed the line in first place, enjoyed the hot seat, and prevailed to take the win, tell me “dude, I sucked out there today, I just got lucky to come in first.”
It’s staggering — so why do it — and why be bummed out when you beat the field — or more to the point — when you don’t? I will tell you why. Deep down in a place that that guy will never talk about at parties, he was 30 seconds faster in his practice run the week before. Or a minute faster on the same course the year before. It doesn’t matter what the rest of the field did. When you don’t feel like you measured up to your own expectations, it makes for a long drive home. (Editor’s note — there are very few time trials that are under 30 minutes from home — so self reflection when driving alone for two hours can get very, very, real, before you finished the iced coffee you bought yourself as a reward for trying hard! Trying hard? Really? This isn’t U.C. Santa Cruz — no A for effort!)
Back to Film School….
I like movies. I watch certain movies over and over and over again looking for hidden meanings, subtleties, and any Easter Eggs I can get my hands on. I especially like plot twists, and multiple story lines. I am kind of a Guy Ritchie fan boy. I admit it. Especially Snatch.
Completely unrelated, in a quest to improve my time trialing and overall cycling capability, I invested in the book “The Brave Athlete — Calm the F*CK Down” by Simon Marshall, PhD, and Lesley Patterson. OK maybe not completely unrelated, as the main premise of The Brave Athlete, is that your psyche is governed by two things. A chimp brain — or the brain that is in charge of all of your visceral functions, and a professor brain — the brain that is in charge of the good sense you have to not be involving yourself in visceral functions all the time. There are a few compelling truths here:
- Marshall and Paterson contend that your professor can never beat the chimp on the chimp’s terms. The chimp is great at what the chimp does, and the professor needs to use intellectual talents to control the chimp and harness its power for good.
- One of the exercises designed to help with this, is to create a persona for yourself as you are involved in athletic challenges. The personal allows you to build yourself up and put your natural chimp energy to good use, while controlling it through the vehicle of this persona that takes consideration and intellectual prowess to dream up. The example they provide is someone who transforms themselves into “Paddy” the bad ass boxer when they are about to start a race. The athlete dresses this way, puts on a scowl, and becomes “Paddy” as she gets ready for competition. This helps her to shut out all of the intimidating presence of the other athletes who may frighten the chimp and cause the chimp to not perform as well as she would like.
Enter my connection to this book, and to the denouement (another film school term, sue me) of Snatch! I had to break the persona down further. For whatever reason, I needed more than the chimp and the professor. In an evening of watching Snatch on an airplane (because it’s always downloaded to some device or another in case I run out of productive things to do), I realized there was more to it than just the chimp and the professor. In time trialing, I was fighting so many things. From not falling when they are holding me up, to keeping a cadence, to breathing, to managing my heart rate, to not starting too hard….ugh! It’s exhausting. So I broke it down. In that climactic scene in Snatch, there are a number of characters that become a part of my own personal fight against the 40K!
Without a doubt, Turkish, (left), is my professor brain! There is a plan here, and he knows the plan, what he doesn’t know, and worries that he doesn’t know, is if Mickey the chimp brain — will stick to the plan, or if Mickey even understands the plan to begin with. “Don’t start too fast, keep in a sane gear, and watch that heart rate — do not spike that heart rate!”
Mickey — the chimp brain (center), is contemplating his own approach to this whole mess. It has nothing to do with his professor brain. He is going to go out there and pedal as fast as he can. He will stand to start. He will worry about his minute man in the first five minutes, more than he will worry about finishing. He will not consider his heart rate, but will be more interested in his wattage and speed. Not that he is working off of his heart rate, but he needs to not burn any matches by spiking it up, and leaving himself with no legs for the finish.
Bomber Harris — the ever menacing opponent — the heart rate. Mix it up with Bomber and everyone will be happy, but if you work to hard on Bomber, and take him down too soon — it will spell trouble. To pay off the analogy — “stop dancing with him Mickey, get in there and hurt him, but do NOT knock him out — under any circumstances, is that clear? Do NOT knock him out” The moral and physical equivalent being — spiking that heart rate to an unsustainable level, going anaerobic, and not being able to recover without taking a good minute off and slowing the whole thing down.
Bricktop — if there was a villain in your time trial — he would certainly fit the bill. He is your ego! He will be angry and disappointed no matter how this turns out. It will be his voice ringing in your ears telling you how it should have been different, or what you did wrong. As you kick your own ass down the road after what feels like an #epicfail — Bricktop will have no mercy. He will have it out of you! And he will relentlessly feed you to the pigs and let them work on you frail state of mind, as you contemplate hitting the submit button on your next race entry.
Putting it in Perspective
Once out on the course, it should all come together. As I got out on a TT course for the first time since my injury in April, it was no less than the New Jersey State TT Cup Championship. A flat, balls out 40K through a beautiful pine dressed section of Southern New Jersey. Per all the instruction I have ever had, I got there two hours early. I had good coffee on the way, the right food for a good breakfast, and the perspective I needed to have a great race. Or so I thought. I listened to the Oasis track “F***ing in the Bushes” that made that Snatch fight scene so memorable. It dovetailed into other Oasis tracks, but it always came back around — at least 4 times in a two hour drive.
Warm up done — check
Food eaten — check
Hydration supply — check
Hydrate — hmmm
Coffee — check, check, um, check, and oh, check
Pitstop — check
New friends — check
Didn’t fall off when starting — check!
“OK thank you for coming, left at the Y, follow the instructions of the troopers, have a great race…5–4–3–2–1 — I am off. Where the fuck is my minute man? What the fuck is my name? What did he say about left at the Y? Hey that’s a Y right there, but no cops, do I turn, nah, go straight.
Turkish’s voice kept echoing — do NOT knock him out
Side note: due to the nature of my injury — hip and pelvic bones, I had been advised to keep things in the 39 for a few weeks, so I was now attempting to do an entire 40k time trial in the small ring.
I was off, but I didn’t see my minute man, and I didn’t see my other minute man behind me. Doubting myself, I turned around. Don’t be that guy, that didn’t listen to the starter and went the wrong way!
Having to navigate traffic, and navigate the turn, and the road, I quickly realized when the next two riders were passing me on the opposite side, that I was on the right road, and had now just given up 60+ seconds if I didn’t turn and chase immediately.
Turkish can do all the planning he wants. But he is not in the ring. Mickey was in charge now, and chasing down. When I finally caught up to one of the riders, I passed, best I could, only to be re-taken by that same rider. I went for it again, and hoped that I had re-re-taken it for good. It was at this point that I realized that my Garmin screen was not the right one (uncheck), and that I could not see my heart rate or wattage. How would I be able to tell if I was about to “knock him out” if I couldn’t see any of the numbers that mattered. Never mind I guess. Time and speed would have to be my only indicators as I held off.
Having made the turn, I realized that I really hadn’t opened too much of a gap. I was now into a headwind in navigating the final 20KM, and top-tier riders were passing me at a pretty steady rate. Their bib numbers getting higher and higher as they went. It suddenly dawned on me, that while Mickey may represent my chimp brain, his ability to nonchalantly walk into a boxing ring and undo his opponent was not something that was necessarily within my reach. From aspirations of kicking-ass on my return to the road, the reality of surviving the test was starting to sink in. I was beginning to get to the point where Mickey gets knocked down, and everyone involved wonders if he will get back up!
Suddenly, I could feel all the mistakes settling into one big, giant, epic mistake. The dehydration, the stupid-high cadence, the 8 weeks of sitting on the sidelines recovering (not necessarily a mistake, but certainly a contributor), and most importantly, going into this thing thinking I could somehow make that miserable piece-of-shit Bricktop (my ego) happy by engaging in this high-cadence, unlicensed, bare-knuckle blood orgy of too many RPM, too many BPM, and not enough KmPH, to make it anywhere near the top-half of the field. While my own personal version of Turkish, told me over and over, that this was a test to “see where we are”, I let Mickey and Bricktop takeover and own the day.
Spoiler Alert
If you haven’t seen Snatch, here’s a spoiler alert. After the perceived knock out, Mickey gets up, fights on, and knocks out Bomber Harris, unleashes his master plan to defeat Bricktop, and sneaks away leaving Turkish with a priceless diamond. Everyone is happy-ish. The difference here, is my Mickey didn’t last that long. After recovering somewhat from a little bit of a bonk out, I did reach the finish line. 8 minutes off of last year’s pace (not exactly rock-star caliber to begin with), but wiser in the knowledge that, in spite of my easier gear and higher cadence, I had kept my heart rate in check. Should my speed come back — and I am working on it — we could have a fight on our hands in Delaware and Borrego Springs in the Fall!
I leave you in the capable hands of the final fight scene! Note the Oasis track that makes it special!
