I'm in Texas and it's about 5 degrees colder here than it is at home in Charlottetown at the moment, and with the 900mph windchill it's frigid. The forecast is saying to 20-25 for the next few days starting tomorrow, but it's not all sunburns and tanlines down this way.
Having no cable I've been reading everything that I can get my hands on. It's been mostly bike magazines, but I also picked up a Michael Phelps book while at the grocery store, stocking up on green tea and eggs, yesterday. I'm not saying that he's not absolutely a phenomenal athlete, but I think that his talent lies in his freakish body-type and not in his life story as the book poorly attempts to make out as being 'against the odds'. I'm a pretty firm believer in the overcoming of adversities in life serving as motivation for racing, and maybe I've been spoiled having read so much about Armstrong and his mind-boggling story of cheating death to win the TDF seven times, but this book doesn't present much of a story. The cover of the book states something like "Coming from a single parent home, Michael had it rough..." or something along those lines. Horseshit. Single parent homes are likely more common than obese Americans, and with his biggest adversity being a loving single parent and two sisters who spoil the shit out of him I don't see his life as much of a struggle. The most inspiring part of the book is a paragraph which talks about one of his relay teammates who started off as a poor, slow swimmer who's parents sold their possessions to get his suits and goggles. He worked hard as shit, though, and I think he eventually went on to be the first black fella to hold a world record in the pool doing something like a 21 second 50 free. I'd rather hear more about him.
I also picked up a cycling magazine which has a bunch of early-90's racing stories and profiles of riders back t
hen. I've always found this type of old stuff boring until now. The flashy bikes and big name sprinters have always been what I enjoyed reading about, but after taking in some info about big names of old I have a different perspective. The most outstanding thing I've read had to do with the Tour de France. Of course it must have been tougher to ride the tour with a 50 pound bike in leather shoes and shitty roads right? What I didn't take into account was that the tour was about 1000km longer and raced entirely differently in its early days. Today you have directors studying the course for hours and the focus is on saving as much energy as you can and putting your big efforts in on a couple of key days. The hell with that. Apparently the older method was to go as hard as you could for as long as you could and hope that you finished ahead of everyone else..if at all. Wild animals and cheating in ways a lot greasier than taking drugs were common. That's god damn racing. None of this tip-toeing through the tulips for 2 weeks with a bunch of guys making sure you don't get too much wind or crash and then riding hard for a couple of hours to take the win.
Having no cable I've been reading everything that I can get my hands on. It's been mostly bike magazines, but I also picked up a Michael Phelps book while at the grocery store, stocking up on green tea and eggs, yesterday. I'm not saying that he's not absolutely a phenomenal athlete, but I think that his talent lies in his freakish body-type and not in his life story as the book poorly attempts to make out as being 'against the odds'. I'm a pretty firm believer in the overcoming of adversities in life serving as motivation for racing, and maybe I've been spoiled having read so much about Armstrong and his mind-boggling story of cheating death to win the TDF seven times, but this book doesn't present much of a story. The cover of the book states something like "Coming from a single parent home, Michael had it rough..." or something along those lines. Horseshit. Single parent homes are likely more common than obese Americans, and with his biggest adversity being a loving single parent and two sisters who spoil the shit out of him I don't see his life as much of a struggle. The most inspiring part of the book is a paragraph which talks about one of his relay teammates who started off as a poor, slow swimmer who's parents sold their possessions to get his suits and goggles. He worked hard as shit, though, and I think he eventually went on to be the first black fella to hold a world record in the pool doing something like a 21 second 50 free. I'd rather hear more about him.
I also picked up a cycling magazine which has a bunch of early-90's racing stories and profiles of riders back t
hen. I've always found this type of old stuff boring until now. The flashy bikes and big name sprinters have always been what I enjoyed reading about, but after taking in some info about big names of old I have a different perspective. The most outstanding thing I've read had to do with the Tour de France. Of course it must have been tougher to ride the tour with a 50 pound bike in leather shoes and shitty roads right? What I didn't take into account was that the tour was about 1000km longer and raced entirely differently in its early days. Today you have directors studying the course for hours and the focus is on saving as much energy as you can and putting your big efforts in on a couple of key days. The hell with that. Apparently the older method was to go as hard as you could for as long as you could and hope that you finished ahead of everyone else..if at all. Wild animals and cheating in ways a lot greasier than taking drugs were common. That's god damn racing. None of this tip-toeing through the tulips for 2 weeks with a bunch of guys making sure you don't get too much wind or crash and then riding hard for a couple of hours to take the win.I guess that does it for my book reviews.
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