The plans for the secret training trip to San Diego later this month are falling together nicely. Insert maniacal laugh as I will once again master the escape from the Midwestern winter. Mind you March 22nd – the date we leave – is technically considered spring but I will only believe it when I see it. And if I know the Midwest, I won’t really see spring until mid-May and even then it will last about 2 weeks before it explodes in 90 degree heat with 95 percent humidity for the next 3 months.
Tim will also be escaping his frigid suit monkey life in Minnesota for some California sun. For the purposes of this trip, we will call him The Timmers. Rumor has it he has been spending most of his winter sniffing his bicycle seat rather than sitting on it and riding. Because of this, I am keeping an eye on Tim for the next few weeks. Mostly, I want to be sure he has some level of cycling fitness right now. The Trousermouse train is rolling out along the Pacific coast on March 22nd and Tim better be in good enough shape to put the power down on hills, flats, and epic climbs with the aerobic capacity to also shout ON YER LEFT.
If this is not the case, if he is – as I suspect – spending most of his time building a PBR tin can pyramid in his kitchen every night after work – we will drop him, we will leave him in the hills to be picked up to work on an artichoke farm for $2 an hour.
To keep an eye on The Timmers, I headed straight to the Team TM blog. Tim posts every now and then. I imagine this is hard because he lives up in Minnesota and winter is their busiest season. His days are probably very busy, sitting in an ice shanty on some frozen lake drinking PBR day after day – not because he likes ice fishing but because he really likes beer. And that’s what Minnesotans do in the winter. They sit in their ice shanties and drink beer. Sometimes they fish.
Tim writes……
“Yesterday was approximately 20 degrees and snowing. We went for a ride. Although nothing was said at first, Marsh had a couple of beers in his jersey and I had a flask of the good ole Kentucky sour mash in mine. After “break time” we rode over to the Minnesota Pond Hockey Championships on Lake Nakomis. Mind you, hockey does not interest me. The beer garden in the circus sized warming tent did. We managed to down a couple more beers, met a crazy bike messenger chic, and then headed home. Trousermouse, fully loaded.”
My suspicions confirmed. Tim is not training with San Diego in mind – he is training only for Ragbrai – which requires a combination of cycling, beer, and circus-sized tents. Though I respect efforts to train both legs and liver at such an early date, I am wondering about his real fitness – the fitness that will count in San Diego, the base building, the long rides, the intervals overgeared at 60 rpm’s? I read on….
“I look like a hobo. I was running a late for work today and I forgot to shave. I was up until the wee hours of the night threading cable through the tri bike. Sometimes this can happen when you live the double life, suit-monkey by day and superhero by night.”
Proof that Tim has been building a bike rather than riding a bike. But this is not a good enough excuse. He has several bikes and the point is that he needs to start riding one. Now. San Diego does not recognize or accept the currency known as “superhero cape”. He writes again…….
“The weather in Minnesota sucks. Marsh did ride the bike in cold the other day. The dew point was negative 19. The gears froze up within the first 2 miles. I have been trying to find motivation to start training again. It has been several weeks since any real workouts have been done. Some of the team is flying out to San Diego in March. The hills should be a good workout and certainly a nice break from the weather here. I can’t wait to be the whitest person in California.”
He forgot to mention that not only will he be the whitest person in California – but the slowest. This calls for something drastic. Maybe if I talk enough trash, Tim will find the motivation to start training again. Here’s my attempt to taunt Tim with things that could probably pedal faster than him right now….
Me
Max on his big wheel with Sammy and Hobbes in tow
Somebody pedaling with their schlong
Shea
Lukanen
Team Tiny with his 16 inch member
Joy
Bert hauling Meg Meg, a pillow, some butter, and two Amish kids
That should leave Tim either thoroughly insulted or highly motivated. Here is one last attempt – Timmers, you hairy hobo, get yourself riding again. It is 16 days until we touchdown in sunny San Diego, 16 days until we roll out and ride.
Earlier this weekend, we also received word that the Red Bear is coming out of hibernation. That’s right, the Red Bear is crawling out of his Colorado cave, pulling out his anal plug a little early this year to head to the hills of sunny San Diego to train with us. A word of warning – do not feed the Red Bear – DO NOT FEED THE RED BEAR! for he is small and mighty, he needs no more power in those legs. Red Bear is already powerful enough to drop us all at the bottom of a hill do not feed him to make him stronger!
We will also be coach-napping Jennifer. She and I will be sharing a room. She has already assured me that she does not talk in her sleep. Like the Midwestern spring, I will believe that when I see it (or don’t hear it). Her San Diego code name will be “the sleeper” because we don’t know what to expect from her. And people have been asking – who is this Jennifer? And can she ride? That is yet to be determined. She could be the sleeper. She could drop the Red Bear in the middle of the hill. We just don’t know. But if she talks in her sleep then she will be deemed “the talk in her sleeper”.
And I’ll be there too. The last time we were in San Diego, Chris deemed me The Mosquito – small, and always there no matter how hard you try to swat me away. We did some riding around Ranchos Penasquitos – a name which Chris found very intriguing. So the other day he came home and said:
“Did you know that Penasquito means little hill?” He went on, “did you also know that Mosquito means little Liz?”
Very funny.
Which brings me to Chris. He does not have a code name. Sometimes I call him Pooperstrudel but that’s a different story.
16 days and counting………..
