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TANDEM TIME TRIAL WITH THE DUDE
WARNING: The following story is based on actual events. Adult language is contained in the retelling of the events as they occurred. The time has come to own up. The following admission will come as no surprise to the regular visitor of the (Feed)Zone nor to anyone who has made my acquaintance. I am losing my mind. I am going mad. I am losing my grip. This weekend past, I participated in the ABR Masters National Time Trial (such as it is). As any bike racer that has competed in more than one time trial knows the mind tends to wander during a time trial longer than about 5k. A good 80% of the art of the successful time trial is concentration. You can have a VO2max in the 95th percentile, you can have the best equipment money can buy and you may have an aero positioned honed through hours of practice and perfected at the expense of thousands of dollars in a wind tunnel, but if you fail to control your thoughts, you won't go fast. A good many able bodied bike racers fail to master the time trial, due simply to the inability to corral the mind and maintain focus on the task at hand; that being to push hard on the pedals until an official tells you that you are done. On Sunday, of the previous weekend, The Lovely Kathy left the country for a week of work abroad. Sans her presence, my life quickly falls into chaos. I drink too much, I stay up late, I wake up early, rarely bathe and I forget to eat. To counter boredom and not knowing what to do with myself, I become a serial watcher of "The Big Lebowski". It's on a continuous loop like "A Christmas Story" on TNT at Christmas Eve. I have watched this Cohen Brothers classic at least 497 times already. The Lovely Kathy has forbidden the movie while she's home; so the only opportunity I have to indulge my elitist high brow side is when she is away. By 11:45 last Tuesday evening, I had watched it three more times, bringing my total Big Lebowski viewings to a nice round 500.
At the start, I clipped in and took off. I was quickly up to speed on the downhill false flat beginning half mile of the 30k course. I checked my speed and I was going 31per. The cadence was good and I was off to a good start. I clicked down through the rear cog set from the 14 to the 13 to the 12 and was a good 5k into the event before I began to fall apart. My legs were on fire and my lungs hurt. The road was choppy with expansion joints which jolted my butt, shoulders and fore arms every 20 feet. "Damn, these TT's hurt…I'm in a world of pain…" That thought, with those words was all it took to send my mind spiraling out of control. Like an acid flashback, I found myself in a bowling alley rather than on my bike…
WALTER SMOKEY WALTER SMOKEY WALTER DUDE WALTER SMOKEY WALTER SMOKEY Walter takes out a gun.
DUDE WALTER SMOKEY WALTER "Hells Bells where did that come from" I said to myself as I snapped out of the hallucination. Back to reality Druber, focus here. I quickly got back into rhythm and pounding on the pedals. I was going really well. I had a slight tailwind, the air was dense, the humidity was high and I was starting to get into a zone. I went up over a crest at the 10k mark and down the other side in full bore giddyup. I hit 37.5 per down the long false flat after the hill as I barreled toward the turn around point. I did the first eleven k (11k) in 13:35…Jeezus, I'm really rolling….Jesus…rolling… DUDE WALTER DUDE WALTER DUDE WALTER DONNY WALTER What is going on here?! Druber, snap to, man you're at a national championship time trial (such as it is) - get cracking! I looked down and discovered much to my dismay that for however long the flashback had lasted I had been soft pedaling along at about 25 per with a tailwind on a relatively flat stretch of road. Dread thoughts of a complete flail flashed into my brain. Druber…focus! You're fucking this is up!
VOICE
DUDE Click. Dial tone.
DUDE
WALTER
DUDE DUDE WALTER DUDE WALTER DUDE WALTER I had completely lost control at this point. I still had about 10k to go and I was drifting in and out of consciousness. I no longer was able to discern hallucination from reality. I suppose when one does as many time trials as I do in a season, one develops a sort of unconscious competence, and much like a functioning alcoholic is able to muster at very least a respectable showing even in an inebriated condition, I must be able to ride a respectable TT despite ADD. Thus, in the brief moments of lucidity where my mind wasn't watching The Big Lebowski, I piloted my bike while my subconscious regulated my breathing and churned my legs while the brain was running from nihilists who wanted to cut off my Johnson. As I rounded the final bend onto the rolling uphill 2k finishing stretch I saw that I was at 38 minutes and change. I truly made every effort to regain focus and finish strongly, but the effort to focus was doomed as my butt was starting to chafe. DRIVER FORTY ONE MINUTES! I was pulled back into the moment by the raised voice of head official Carl Wilkins as I crossed the finish line. I stopped pedaling and cruised to slow down. I rolled back to my car where another rider asked me how I had done. "Pretty slow, but I laughed a lot". "Huh?" "Nevermind" "What?" "Oh…41minutes or so. I think. I wasn't paying attention." As it turns out, that was good enough to win the 40+ category. The exact time was 41:06. I did a second time trial for the 30+ category and finished that one almost one minute slower in 42:07, which was good for second place behind Kelly Benefits pro Reid Mumford, who posted a 39:59 for the fastest time of the day. Reid clearly was not handicapped by attention deficit disorder. I likely would have gone slower than I did for TT number 2, but by the time I started the 30+ TT, my internal DVD player had forwarded itself to the scene just after The Dude's visit to Maude Lebowski's good and thorough doctor. The dude is driving in his recently recovered car, drinking a beer, smoking a J, thumping the roof and listening to his Credence tape. DOO DOO DOO LOOKIN' OUT MY BACK DOOR… Does any one know if Ritalin is on the banned substance list?
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