Part of the trouble of being Brian’s bike coach is telling him what’s wrong with him (not that I don’t enjoy telling Brian what’s wrong with him, mind you—I do), well, there’s nothing really wrong with him at all from a person standpoint. In that regard, he is doing quite well, but from a racer standpoint, he needs to improve, and that many times that mean being a less good person. This is the conundrum of bikes—being good at bikes may make you bad at life. In fact, many successful bike racers out there may be really bad at life.

That’s because being good at bikes takes a lot of time, and if you have a job, family and any sort of meaningful relationships in your life, you have a finite amount of time you can spend plodding away atop your $5,000 resentment-bringer. Five hour weekend rides aren’t exactly an option when you have to attend three or four (non-your own) sporting events on a Saturday. To be an adequate time-crunched racer, you need to get creative; and unfortunately most of the creative training options might involve some drastic (and depending upon your attitude, repugnant) life changes. Let’s take a look at these potential changes, shall we?

Firstly, you could start commuting to work. Riding your bike to work is an excellent way to shove more miles into your athletic coal furnace. But commuting can be difficult. If you work somewhere that requires you to dress in a manner that doesn’t resemble someone who’s spent a fortnight at Zuccotti Park, you will need a place to shower and a way to transport your non-stinky clothes. You will also need to accommodate for the special challenges of commuting in the winter when it’s balls-cold and as dark as Trent Reznor’s mascara. It takes a hearty soul to commute regularly, and not everyone can pull it off from a logistical standpoint, which brings us to our next option.

You could start getting up much, much earlier. This is the secret of farmers, bakers and the annoyingly motivated. If you can get up when no one else wants to, the world is your oyster. There’s less traffic to contend with and you can arrive at work in the morning having completed your athletic to-do list. There’s drawback to this training routine also, there’s the balls-coldness and darkness referenced above, and there’s also the added challenge of the shift in your waking hours. You see, "people" like to socialize in the evenings, and unless your significant other is also an early riser, they will expect to converse and enjoy your company past 9pm. This is difficult if you are nodding off due to a 4:30 wake up call, and could bring about stress, disruption and chastity in your significant relationships. But do not despair, there’s another training option out there.

You could just be slow. Of course, being slow is not the goal of any training program, but sometimes it’s the best option. I’ve been racing bikes a long time, and I’ve seem many racers come and go. Most of the racers I’ve seen flame out are the ones who take themselves and their racing very seriously. They buy all the best equipment. They get coaches and training programs. They go on trips to training camps. They buy Rapha casual clothing. And in two year’s time they look around and realize that all that effort has only marginally increased their speed. Many racers quit the sport at this point. All the sacrifices they made: potential career advancement, loss of familial goodwill, wearing Rapha clothing in public; all seem trivial. But if those racers had only embraced their slowness, they might still be wearing Rapha today. Being OK with being slow allows you to continue riding, and if you don’t stop riding, chances are that you will get better at riding bikes.

This is my advice to Brian as he begins his actual bike training, try to ride as much as you can without resorting to wearing Rapha. You might be slow, but you will still be on your bike.

I’ve been mostly out of contact with Brian for the past week. He has finished his last marathon and now begins his real training for the year. He didn’t send me his marathon information because he know how I feel about those things. I find them akin to building a full scale replica of the Queen Mary made entirely of Legos—it’s a remarkable achievement that I see no point in encouraging.