"No man is an island" and making an attempt on the hour is definitely not a one man show, it might be me up there grinding out the laps but in order to get the show on the road there have been years of help and advice from my coach Auriel Forrester, an understanding family on the home scene and a crew to help on the night.
The crew is Carl..timing/pacing...walking the line, Lawrence the provider of ice, spare wheels just in case, pre-race liaison with officials and style queen ie visual reminder when I'm starting to lose the loooong(well relatively)/stretched out/aero position and finally son Alex-general duties. Yesterday evening I met up over a "coffee" (actually lime juice cordial..yum!) with Lawrence for a briefing to make sure we were on the same page; she was track side with me on my last effort and so it was easy to refer back to what worked and what didn't that time.
Added to their tasks before and during the attempt they will also need to be there to catch me at the end of the hour, rip off my aero helmet, put on the camelback and put me on the road bike to do a few final extremely weary circuits to start off the recovery process. Experience tells me I will need 1-2 hours before the drug test can be completed, so hanging around for that long is also part of the job description for someone as I will need to be driven home.
Things yet to do: get weights for the bike, have tyres checked out and new ones glued on if needed, source an ice vest to borrow, taper wisely, stay clear of germs, eliminate walking long distances, stay cool, calm, collected, positive and confident.
Finally Baby Baum has his first blemish...bugger! actually its on the forks not the bike itself....must have happened in the car.
2 comments:
If Baby Baum has its first blemish, then it's ready to rocknroll and is no longer to be considered a precious jewel but a weapon with which to conquer a world record. IE Its' just gone HTFU, suck it up princess. Or something like that.
I got a good feeling about this one. And if we aren't catching you cos you're not falling off your bike this time, you're in deep shit, cos you haven't gone hard enough ;-p
I hope you make me cry again my friend :-)Am looking forward to it, and will have a stash of tissue at the ready :-D
Baby Baum is no longer BB as you so rightly remark...he is now JENS of "Shut up legs" fame!
and since deep shit is not a fun place to be, I'll be trying very hard to steer clear of it!
Post a Comment