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Very well done. Clean. It was very perceptive of you to pick up on my affinity for donuts. The sticky substance you felt from the handshake was indeed Knott's Berry Farm syrup, apricot I believe. I must have dribbled some when transferring it into my Hammer Gel flask. These are subtle nuances that most folk don't notice at first meeting. I try to hide the truth, but just as the closet alcoholic has broken capillaries on the nose and walks duck footed, some things just can't be covered up. That said, I'm more of a Bavarian Cream and Apple Fritter guy than powdered sugar. I find Hostess Donettes too messy and dry. Couple of other issues I'll clear up while I'm at it for editorial integrity... I am NOT a Hoosier. I live in ILLINOIS. Illinois is The Land of Lincoln, birthplace of Hemmingway, Frank Lloyd Wright. It's home to those lovable losers the Cubs, and a frat boy who dresses in Buckskin calling himself Illiniwek. He does a pretend Indian dance at halftime of Illinois football and basketball games. It outrages the Native Americans and fuzzyheaded academics around here, but it keeps the alumni donating money, so it's all good. Indiana by contrast, doesn't even have a baseball team for crying out loud. Indiana only lays claim to an ill-tempered, chair-tossing, player flogging former hoops coach, Dan Quayle, and of course Larry Bird. They could claim Kurt Vonnegut, but it's a fact that escapes Hoosiers 'cept Billy and Vonnegut himself. I'd shoot myself in the head if I lived in Indiana. There is a big difference. Billy and I don't train together. We see each other at races and swap stories and e-mail accounts of events both factual and fantastic based loosely around bike play. I keep trying to get him to come to my house for dinner the night before the Champaign Criterium, but I think he's afraid of brown liquor poisoning. The basement computrainer interval sessions are a complete fabrication on your part - except for Billy's snack breaks. That part is true. Also not true that you saw me in the feed zone foraging for snack cakes halfway through the road race. I finished the road race. It was a Hypoxic Flail, but I finished. Must have been some other large poser you saw in the feed zone slathering cocoa butter on his legs. Besides, cocoa butter smells so good I'm generally tempted to eat it before it gets to my legs. Billy won't vouch for my integrity if he's smart, but he will confirm that I have the ability to push the pedals down with a great deal of force - which I know you are not seriously calling into question. As stated I have no idea my actual time when I crossed the finish line in Fridays Time Trial. Nor, how it compared to Horner's time real or imagined. Simply said I think the 24:47 recorded might have been somewhere in the vicinity. I don't think I was the recipient of a 2 or 3 minute largesse from the Blue Coats. Crossing the line, I was too pre occupied with wiping snot bubbles and foamy dried spittle from my face to hit the stop button on my speedometer. I do know that when I finally turned the speedo off of auto mode after coasting for about a 1/4 mile to the intersection it read 26:45 and my average speed was recorded at 28 mph. This is all I can give you. I understand Hover has a math minor from U Texas. Perhaps he could use this information to interpolate a time for me. Other than that, I must have cheated. Last time I cheated this hard I finished second in a hilly NRC dreamer race in Peoria in June of '03. Some kid named Bergman ripped my legs off and beat me about the head with them with 3 miles left to finish the race. Pound/Flail conundrum indeed. Interestingly, two 5th place finishes in masters crits followed up that ride the next day. Not that any of this really matters. As even David Millar knows, time trials aren't bike races. I will share Labor's outrage that Louie the Rican and Hoodee Hover weren't given credit for the stage. When one makes the effort and submits ones self to the torture of the individual time trial, you should at least have the honor of seeing a time posted. DNS completely ignores the pain. It's worse than a DNF, which acknowledges you subjected yourself to some pain then got a flat or whatever. Even "The Passion" has its ticket sales tracked. Good or bad, the suffering should be acknowledged. This is especially true for Louie. I mean the guy goes to the trouble and expense of decking out a trick Trek TT bike; he should at least be able to see a time on the board. Even though it would have been behind mine. Which begs the question: What is the worse ignominy; DNS or being bested by a fat gringo on a department store Motobecane? Finally, we are lead to the bigger issue. We pay entry fees, line up and race, do our best and turn ourselves into oxygen depleted, lactic acid burned, contorted, snot covered, road rashed messes that even our spouses, mothers and significant others can't stand to look at and we don't get our efforts acknowledged. It hurts. We know our efforts won't be acknowledged by the folk who look dumbly at us when we explain how hard it is to ride a bike up a steep hill at 12 mph for twenty minutes, or who ask us if our butts got sore when told that that we rode 550 miles on a bike in California rather than hanging outside the Hollywood Hyatt in hopes of catching a glimpse of Paris Hilton walk into the Oscar's pre party, but these people shouldn't be the ones who are paid to monitor and record our efforts. In this respect, I am Bill Clinton. I feel your pain. In
fact, I feel your pain so badly that I am going to begin a regular
contribution to TrueSport as well.
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