angry
i didn't watch much of it, but what i saw last night made me angry. we tuned in late - and when we did tune in it was during a commercial explaining that stress sweat smelled worse than regular sweat. that, in the first 30 seconds of watching, confirmed my fears about oprah doing this come to jesus interview. in what i did see of the actual interview, i saw a man checking the boxes. saying the right things but in a way that was not authentic - almost robotic. i saw the shell of a champion. and i felt duped.
i ate it up when he was winning. the improbable string of victories at the tour de france. the coverage fueled my training every july and beyond. now that i have read tyler hamilton's book and seen just a few minutes of the 'confession,' i feel angry that i allowed myself to be indulged by this. super human feats are just that - there is no such thing as a super hero and when it seems like someone is defying the odds in an unlikely fashion there is a high probability that they are cheating (adrian peterson i'm talking about you). i should have known better. but for some reason, even after some of the rumors started to come out, i allowed myself to believe in this man and even went so far as to defend him.
anyway, maybe this will actually be a water shed moment. i do think that good can come of it - maybe this will reach into the deep dark corners of national federations and the uci. maybe this will go beyond the athletes and teams. this type of a thing doesn't happen to this degree without knowledge at a very high level. there will always be cheats. but hopefully it will not ever be to this degree or this systematic. maybe. hopefully. probably not.
i did spend some time working on bikes last night. i had washed my cross bikes the night of my last race. they look shiny and clean. but, as i was inspecting my b bike i noticed that the pulleys were jammed with mud/grass. i've also been getting flats on my road bike from just riding the trainer. so i did a very thorough inspection of the tire/wheel and found nothing. maybe it is a bad lot of tubes... i grabbed a different type and fixed it. we shall see if that helps at all. i do like the idea of switching to tubulars for everyday road riding - and tubular wheels is pretty much the only thing on my list for the swap tomorrow.
happy friday.
i ate it up when he was winning. the improbable string of victories at the tour de france. the coverage fueled my training every july and beyond. now that i have read tyler hamilton's book and seen just a few minutes of the 'confession,' i feel angry that i allowed myself to be indulged by this. super human feats are just that - there is no such thing as a super hero and when it seems like someone is defying the odds in an unlikely fashion there is a high probability that they are cheating (adrian peterson i'm talking about you). i should have known better. but for some reason, even after some of the rumors started to come out, i allowed myself to believe in this man and even went so far as to defend him.
anyway, maybe this will actually be a water shed moment. i do think that good can come of it - maybe this will reach into the deep dark corners of national federations and the uci. maybe this will go beyond the athletes and teams. this type of a thing doesn't happen to this degree without knowledge at a very high level. there will always be cheats. but hopefully it will not ever be to this degree or this systematic. maybe. hopefully. probably not.
i did spend some time working on bikes last night. i had washed my cross bikes the night of my last race. they look shiny and clean. but, as i was inspecting my b bike i noticed that the pulleys were jammed with mud/grass. i've also been getting flats on my road bike from just riding the trainer. so i did a very thorough inspection of the tire/wheel and found nothing. maybe it is a bad lot of tubes... i grabbed a different type and fixed it. we shall see if that helps at all. i do like the idea of switching to tubulars for everyday road riding - and tubular wheels is pretty much the only thing on my list for the swap tomorrow.
happy friday.
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