I was poking around on Facebook when my friend, and teammate Anne Findlay shared this photo, originally posted by Beth Newell.
Of course instantly I was like, hmm, that name sounds familiar, who is that. And naturally I USACycled her… that lead me to her blog (don’t judge, it’s Friday at work, and I don’t have many pressing things to do, and it’s about 20 degrees outside, and I rode to work, and I’m dreading riding home, so I became a stalker, get over it), and i read her first article about wrapping up Training Camp. This instantly made me curse the fact that I do not have any sort of Training Camp, because I work fulltime, and I don’t know how I am going to be in shape for Speedweek. Then I started hyperventilating, and thinking about the interval I did this morning, and how I probably could have pushed a little harder, but probably only if I would have had the foresight to open the window before I started it, and how the sunlight was so strong in my bedroom, and was acting like an oven and creating a greenhouse effect that the fan couldn’t dissipate. Anyway, then I scrolled down to Beth’s next post and realized that Beth is awesome. Why? Because she wrote this… I quote:
now, the usa cycling profile is used for a few important purposes:
- find out the age of that person that you might potentially be romantically interested in. this is, of course, the most important use of the usacycling.org/results page. of course, you can sometimes lie to yourself, as this displays “racing age,” not “actual age” - but it is still fairly accurate. having a mechanism like this is extremely important in a sport where you: a) often see people in helmets, which can hide indications of age, such as baldness, and b) cyclists’ skin wrinkle early because of sun exposure and lack of moisturizer. the usacycling.org/results is really an excellent service that USAC provides to cycling singles everywhere. (not that i am a cycling single, but at one time i was, and greatly appreciated this stalking service).
- sniff out the competition - it is quite helpful seeing how your competitors are doing. or if you are going to a race with no one you know, see what you have yourself matched up against. however, let’s be honest on how i really use the results…. looking up races i didn’t do, and saying: “oh, i totally beat that girl in a sprint once a few years ago at the early bird criterium when we were cat4s, so had i showed up, i totally would have won.” you can really find anything you want, and thus, everything can be a morale booster.
- provide painful memories of missed opportunities in races - yes, it tracks all those bad results that you want to forget about… like that time i clipped my pedal as a cat4 and got 13th in crit… or that time where hanging out on the sidelines just looked more fun than riding in circles… yep, it is all there… forever..
This is 100% true. So Beth, I don’t know which girl in that picture you are - and like someone else commented (on Facebook), my favorite part of the photo is also how all the girls have their hair fabulously blowing in the wind, and are smiling, showing their pearly whites, while have epically banged up knees — but you’re awesome. Good luck this season.
