Cadel Evans won the Tour de France. While I'm thrilled for him, I'm also a little bummed. There are major ramifications when an Aussie achieves greatness. Every middle aged man who has a bicycle and can squeeze into a pair of undersized tights becomes delusional. They firmly believe that if they train hard enough - like for a year or a couple of months or maybe a day or two before the momentum leaves them - they too can wear that yellow jersey. I think it's a form of contagious sporting dementia. It doesn't matter if you're 55, have never won anything in your life and have a VO2 max of 18 because of your long-term smoking habit, if you put on the tights and go for a ride for a moment you can bask in reflected glory.
Yesterday was our hills session and I've never seen such a graphic demonstration of this phenomenon before. Every Tom, Dick and Harry was there in their overstretched Lycra training for next year's ascent of the French Alps. It doesn't matter that Mt Coot tha sits only 287 m above sea level at it's highest and the Alps are almost 20 times that high. Delusion is not based in reality and the fact that they are riding up a hill is enough for most. It also doesn't matter that a few of us runners (not me) can actually pass the slower of the riders - they are happily entrenched in their daydreams.
The only problem is that the road is quite narrow and is public and idiots in utes and four wheel drives like to belt up the mountain at ridiculous speeds so the road became a little hairy at times. We stuck firmly to the left but when the cyclists decide to ride in tandem and the ute driver can't wait to overtake them but a bus is coming down the other direction just when they're all at the same time and space continuum as you are - well lets just say it does unusual things to your heart rate.
I couldn't get the arrow in exactly the right spot but there's a definite hiccup with that downhill tracing.
We managed to finish the session with as many runners as we started with so all's good and with any luck time will cure these middle-aged maniacs of their aspirations. I'm thinking a really good bout of DOMS from yesterday's hill session will bring some down to reality and it will be less crowded on Coot tha next week.
Maybe you could start designing Men's lycra outfits for all these crazed souls and make a bonanza out of it.
ReplyDeleteThe juvenile is me is lauging at those red lycra tight shorts...oh my! :)
ReplyDeleteIt's kinda like when I go and swim my usual Monday laps at the pool and the Monday after Michael won how many golds he won (lame that I can't even remember...not that I really care), the pool was packed. Everyone in Colorado thought they were going to be the next Phelps. Eh, 3 Monday's later, the pool was back to being empty...but sometimes, it's nice to dream, huh?!? :)
Ha ha - too right! We have them here too this time of year.
ReplyDeleteOh, well - I guess that's part of the public service function of professional athletes - to inspire the rest of us to get off our backsides from time to time.
Now I remember why I wear black cycling shorts...and ride at night!!!
ReplyDeleteI hear that you now have a new national holiday to commemorate the occasion?
And yes...it is nice to be somewhat pain free.
ajh stole my comment. Not fair :)
ReplyDeleteThat is really funny but happens here as well. I can imagine the heart rate takes a beating when your running space gets taken up by speeding vehicles.
ReplyDeleteUm wow, those shorts don't leave much to the imagination do they??
ReplyDeleteThat photo needs to be censored. I kept looking over my shoulder while reading your post to see if anyone was seeing me read it.
ReplyDeleteI am too distracted by that first picture to be able to comment about anything else you wrote about. I'll get back to you later. lol
ReplyDeleteOH the horror of the that first pic. Char, c'mon, regarding you comment on my blog...sparse is in :-)
ReplyDeleteGuess what? I will be visiting your country next week. Melbourne. Hopefully you can get them to roll out the red carpet for me.
I think that the men in the first pic are ridiculous.
ReplyDelete