Lucianotes: My TTT Civil War

I can say I really grasped the concept of civil war and secession today. In my own flesh. 

Until the TTT today my body had always been a somewhat unified entity. It had its pains and headaches, but was identifiable as a whole, following the same set of rules and governed by the brain. That was until the TTT.

150 meters into Richmond Park, as my left quadriceps had already declared secession, my heart and lungs were calling for an unlimited and unconditional strike (heart and lungs are the frenchiest parts of me). They claimed they would declare independence unless my brain committed to stop giving the instruction to pedal above 5 w/kg. 

By the end of the race even my soul was scattered into seven personalities fighting against each other. I was not a singular physical nor metaphysical entity, but a vague constellation of Luciano subsets randomly colliding or escaping.

But I (whatever “I” stands for in the current circumstances) made it to the end. 

And I can take zero credit for that.

First, if it was not for Captain Tom, relentlessly encouraging us and trying to make sense and order of our totally different levels, we would have crossed the finish line one by one with a minute separating each of us. 

I also would have thrown my bike and myself in the Thames if not for the hero of the day: my teammate Lucien. 

He is the one who managed to load my blood cells with oxygen beyond what is naturally humanly possible. 

To be clear, if the pro teams in the late 90s had a Lucien within their ranks, EPO would have never made its way in the peloton. It would have been useless against the unlimited power of a Lucien.

A Lucien is way more efficient in getting you pushing harder and longer than any processed chemical. Better: Lucien is not on the antidoping list, extremely fun to ride with, and a great team player. On top of that, if you have allergies you can still be his friend, as Lucien is 100% GMO, Gluten, Lactose, nuts, and even BPA free.

So when things started to get difficult, namely around 67 meters/9 seconds into the race, it became obvious that my only goal during the following 40 minutes or so would be not to allow Lucien to become a small dot up the road on my screen. I should always be able to identify his white helmet, like a lighthouse guiding me home (yes, I am also allowed to write cheesy lines belonging in the chorus of a Bryan Adams song). 

I did not manage this all the time, but most of it. This “most of it” was good enough so I felt I contributed to the team. 

And in the end we, the entire team, gave it all.

Crossing the finish line, the feeling that all of our tanks were empty was confirmed by the variety of weird sounds saturating my team’s Discord voice channel. (You definitely know you are a team when you feel comfortable enough to expose yourself in those moments of total loss of dignity. No filters.)

These times seal the “blood pact” between teammates, as each member of the team now has privileged and sensitive information about all the others. Nuclear dissuasion and Omerta rules: what happens in Coalition stays in Coalition.

We ranked 10th but were convinced we would rank 1st as teammates. 

Later, looking at the figures, I understood why my body disassembled. I set a PB for highest 30-minute heart rate and 30-minute power, rode at a much higher cadence than usual and… FTP increased by 4 watts.

I literally pushed my limits. The impossible became possible (yes, I am also allowed to write taglines that would better fit in a self-improvement book). 

Allow me to make it shorter than usual today. I wrote this post with the only finger I have left still obeying my brain. It took me four hours.

I now have to invite the secessionist parts of my body to an armistice meeting, and convince them that I will never again whip them the way I did today. 

(We all know that is a lie anyway. Next week we will all die again on Yumezi’s Temple KOM, on a road OR gravel bike, as this decision has still to be made.)