Friday Follies ~~ Lanterne Rouge

Somebody has to be last.

It took me a while to discover that I was an endurance athlete.  That’s another way of saying that I wasn’t particularly fast, but I could keep going a lot longer than most.

Remember kids games?  Most of them are based on acceleration.  I didn’t have acceleration.  I got picked last for a lot of games.  But then I started noticing something.  I could wear a lot of the other kids down.  There is this idiotically mean game that kids play.  Keep Away.  As a game it’s just good fun, much like tag.  In fact, I made my discovery during tag games.

Before I hit on a strategy, I spent a lot of time as “It.”  But one day I had an inspiration.  Rather than run after any kid who was nearby, and not catch him, I picked out one kid in particular.  No matter who else was around, I ran after that kid.  If the kid went to “Base.” I stood there waiting for him.  At first my target would easily out run me.  But with time, he got slower, winded, and eventually, I caught him.

How does that relate to the tormenting kind of Keep-Away?  You remember that one?  Some kid runs up and grabs your hat, your book, your glasses, something of value to you.  The kid then taunts you.  If you get close, the kid tosses the object to another kid.  With a combination of agility and acceleration, the gang can keep the “slow kid”  (me) in a state of amusing torment for a long time.

I learned to apply my Tag strategy to this situation.  Rather than chasing after my belonging, I went after the leader of the pack.  Eventually, I’d catch him, and then I’d wail the living daylights out of him until he had his confederates return my property.  After a while they stopped picking on me.

When it came to running, I was absolutely never ready for any race that I ever ran for the first time.  The 880 was a shock.  It started fast and I got left behind.  My first Mile was just as bad.  Same thing with the two mile and the 5K.  But I learned.  If the race was long enough, I could win it.

When I discovered competitive cycling, I had a bit of an epiphany.  It took me a while to discover that I was a sprinter.  (Sprinting in cycling is about power.  Power, correctly applied, yields acceleration.)  The thing was, I wasn’t a great sprinter.  Worse, I happen to be possessed of a large body.  In the best shape that I ever achieved, I was a good 30 pounds heavier than the climbers.  If there were hills on the course (and there always were!) I lost.

I’ve mentioned elsewhere, there was a time in my life when many other things occupied me.  I did what a lot of men do in their early 30s.  I got heavy and out of shape.  It took a long time to come back from that.  The first time I rode in an organized century, the parking lot was all but empty when I finished.

My second century was better and worse.  Better because I was in a bit better shape and better prepared for it.  Worse in that the route was very hilly, and…

Well, I started out well.  I was passed by a lot of folks, but there were a lot more behind me.  I found people I could ride with…  For a while.  Then they dropped me.  As the day wore on, there were fewer and fewer people around me or in sight.  Then came the time when I was alone.

That ride route had regular rest stops.  They were almost exactly 20 miles apart.  There were only three other riders at the last stop when I got there.  They left as I pulled in.  The rest stop worker was nice to me, but she was taking the stop apart, and was obviously impatient to leave.  I saw no one else for the next 20 miles.  That last leg was one of the longest I’ve ever done.  It took a geologic interval for me to get to the end of it.  When I finally did, there were three people there, event workers.  They applauded in a desultory fashion, and then they gave me two slices of cold pizza and a warm soda.

“You’re the last one in,”  one of them said.  “Somebody has to be.”

Back in the early history of cycling, when “bicycle” meant a “high-wheeler,” things were not as they are now.  At that time, steam locomotive powered railroads were the absolute height of technology, speed, and power.  This railroad technology was still somewhat primitive.  The last car on a train would have a red lamp, or “lanterne rouge” displayed.  This did two things.  It allowed engineers of following trains to realize there was a train ahead.  Just as important, the conductors of trains would look for the red light on their own train to make sure that no couplings had come undone.  When big time bicycle racing started, in the very early 20^th century, it was natural for commentators to refer to the last rider in a tour or race as “the caboose,” or the “lanterne rouge.”