When the going gets tough, the jittery get nervous

I'm riding my first 10 mile time trial of the year tonight.  It's at the Olympic Park in London.  That makes it sound rather grand.  It isn't.  A local cycling team, of which I used to be a member in a previous life, organises it.  It's really low key stuff, and no-one, but no-one will be paying a blind bit of attention to what I'm doing, and yet I'm as nervous as a kitten in dog-filled caravan.

And this is route of my problems with tt-ing.  One must be in control of oneself to execute the event correctly.  You must mete out the effort over the entire length of the course, slowing increasing the pace until you hit your threshold with a mile to go.  A mile can be sustained at this intensity without cracking.  Any earlier than this and you get into oxygen debt and the game's up.

You can see the dilemma.  Your energy levels are at their highest at the start of the event, so you have to go slower than you know you can.  That's tough when there are other people on the track who are faster than you.  The temptation to follow them is huge.  But it's a temptation that must be resisted.

I've never managed to resist in all the time trials I've done, and that's troubling.  I'm always left with the knowledge that I've not shown myself in the best light to the other riders.  Tonight, it must be different; I must be calm and controlled.  

Chris Froome likens time trialling to rolling out a huge, heavy, furled carpet.  At the start it unfurls slowly, speeding up as it goes until it hits its maximum just as the finish line approaches.  And Chris Boardman describes it as more of an art than a science.  I'm quite good at art.  I'm artistic.  I just need to show it.  On a bike.  At twenty-four miles an hour.

Nose, meet Grindstone

I'm back from a long weekend in Ireland, celebrating my father's 70th birthday.  And very life-affirming and jolly it was too.  Family gatherings are minefields of course, but everything on this trip worked a treat, from the choice of hotel to the dining and day trips.  Even the weather wasn't too bad, which for Ireland in July is little short of a facking miracle.

The irony of the trip for me was the fact that The Tour de France passed about twenty feet from my front door during the my absence.  Me, who's been following professional cycling for a quarter of century, when it was about as popular in England as kabbadi or bull-fighting.  I suppose it's probably just as well I wasn't there; I don't suppose I could have resisted the temptation to headbutt some Johnny-come-lately at the roadside as he held forth to his missus on why Chris Froome would probably win the bunch sprint on The Mall.

Mrs O and I arrived home literally as the stage was finishing on The Mall.  We watched the highlights last night, and I have to say it was amazing watching the streets that I know like the bee of my aitch full of world-famous cyclists.  Former Tour winner Andy Schleck had the misfortune to crash at a bus-stop at Waterworks Roundabout, which is about a mile from my house.  That bus-stop has already taken on cult status among local road men.  I myself will be visiting it this evening on the way home.  Wish I brought me camera.

The L-Shaped Froome

Well, I'm charging through my review copy of Chris Froome's "The Climb".  It started off a bit flowery, language-wise that is ("We exist in our cadence", anyone?), but quickly settled down and has turned into a very diverting read.  You know you're on to something good when you develop paternal feelings for someone on the strength of just 90 pages of his autobiography.

The thing about CF is has doesn't do anything flamboyant; he just does the ordinary things well.  He is possessed of a even temperament and a dogged optimism.  This makes him impossible to dislike.  It also explains why he is so well-liked by his teammates.  I am always amazed by his unpretentious grace under pressure.  During the Tour he faces interviewers at the tops of Alpine climbs, after 7 hours' racing with an infectious boyish half-smile on his lips.  This is someone, you think to yourself, who loves being alive and who is determined to relish every moment.  Good for him.

The other thing that marks his story out as noteworthy is his unusual upbringing.  He was born and raised in Kenya, but into a decidedly British milieu.  He cut his cycling teeth in an all-black, Swahili-speaking environment.  Chris, unusually for a white Kenyan, is fluent in the language.  He initially, as he admits, must have stuck out like a sore white thumb.  The fact that he was accepted and taken to the heart of this small clique of black Kenyan cyclists speak volumes for his integrity.

Chris Froome - if he moved in next door to you, you'd be delighted.

How's the revision going? What revision? Is there an exam?

I've been asked to review a book for work; I say "been asked", but if you substitute the word "volunteered", you're closer to the truth, goddammit.  I thought it would be fun.  The book, Chris Froome's autobiography, is on a subject I love and am knowledgeable about.  And, even if I say so myself, I'm usually pretty good at distilling books and films down to their scanties.  I also read voraciously.  So what's the problem?

I'll tell you.  I feel under pressure.  If I didn't have a deadline, I've have read this tome in three or four days.  As it is, I've got a week.  And yet all I can do is cast furtive glances at it on my desk, and worry because the bookmark is too near the front cover for comfort.  Also, unless I forget how to read English overnight or pull a hamstring in my eyes, it's going to get read in due course.   I just need to relax.  I'm going to end up buying a CD of whale song because I've got to write 300 non-committal words by Tuesday week.

When the going gets tough.