The Secret Book

In my last blog, the Over the Mountain race report, I expressed a little disappointment in how things went down at that race. As Carol pointed out, I was all smiles after the race, but that's just because I'm not the type of guy to sit around and whine about my performance, it's just not in me. This is after all a hobby, and a heck of a fun one at that. Nonetheless, I was confused and frustrated at the results, but now that a few days have passed, I am feeling a little better about it. Though I still can't help but wonder exactly what happened.

As soon as the race was over, I chatted with some new racing buddies (Bobby Cristman, Kit Phillips, and Kevin Bartlett), then quickly went back to the hotel to pick up Becca and Elena, who spent the morning resting at the hotel, since the opportunities for spectatorship were few at this venue. Becca was excited to see me, and immediately asked, "How did you do?!" I said, "Well, in my age group, a guy from VA beat me, and Kit also beat me...badly." Her first words were, "Find out what he's been doing!" See, though I had raced him several times before (with about an even split of which one of us beat the other in each race), Bec and I first formally met Kit and his wife Serena at White Lake four weeks before, a race where I finished before Kit by a few seconds. It turns out they are a great couple to spend the seemingly endless hours of time between finishing a race and the awards ceremony with, so we got to know them pretty well the past two races. Since Becca had trained me very hard in the interim between WL and OTM, I think we were both confused how he was able to perform so much better, and wanted to see what his secret was. So, I showered and we headed back to the race site for the awards, and to see if I could find out what Kit's been up to. Here's the report of my reconnaissance:

It turns out Kit is training for his first Ironman, at Wisconsin this September, and is using these NCTS races as a warm up. I asked if he had a coach. He said no, but that he did have a book, which he has used for years to guide his training plans. Owning just about every possible triathlon book myself, I was pretty sure I must have the same book somewhere, so I started asking for details. Now, Kit said he couldn't remember the title or authors, but I think he was just playing his cards close to the vest. What he did tell me was this it was made of paper, had many pages with words on them, and was about an inch thick. Over the next hour or so while we waited for the awards, my mind flashed images of Coach Klein's secret playbook from "The Waterboy", complete with tattered pages and ripped cover. And I pictured Kit owning the only copy of this book in existence, having inherited it from some triathlon great of the past. I kept prying at Kit for more info, and he either took pity on me or his memory got better, and gave more details: He said it had a white cover with blue words (he actually gave me more details than this since he is a really nice guy, but I wouldn't want to give away his secrets to everybody, and it makes the blog story better if the book retains its mystery).

So, when we got home, Becca began the search on Amazon for the Secret Book. I think she actually may have found it too. In truth, I know there are much more sound reasons why I didn't race well than not owning this silly book, but it makes it fun to think there's some magic formula in it. Watch out Kit! I may have found your book!