An afternoon in the life of a personal trainer

by Gabe Rindaldi, FIT General Manager 

Last Wednesday I had a fairly open schedule in the afternoon. It’s rare these days that I have a good chunk of time away during the day. I considered working out, but instead remembered reading in the previous day’s newspaper about the Amgen Tour of California bicycle race. This was a multi-staged race that occurred February 18th-25th. As luck would have it, stage 3 was a 94.6-mile course from Stockton to San Jose and I would be able to get to the finish area in time to watch the racers sprint across the line. This newsletter article is going to share some of my thoughts from this experience.

After parking in some random parking garage I ran towards the finish area in hopes that I wouldn’t miss the finish of the race. I was running while talking to my wife on the cell phone. I remember thinking to myself that I’m glad I’m in decent shape to be able to do something like this. I bet many people would be so out of breath that they couldn’t talk. I wasn’t really running that fast though. Anyway, luckily I got to the crowd of people and could see the racers on the big screen TV still riding. I met up with Thom downtown. There wasn’t much action going on, just more and more people arriving to line the finish line street. It’s pretty boring to watch cycling unless you are really into the sport and follow all the teams. It’s even more boring to watch it on television. I remember looking at the crowd and many people did not look like cyclists to me. I began to wonder how all of these people were able to take time away from work to watch these elite athletes sprint on their bikes for the final 100 yards or so.

Thom ended up running into one of his friends. I immediately liked this guy after I heard he was an ex-pro motocross racer, multi-time winner of the baja 1000 in a buggy, and his son was one of the pro cyclists on the course. I used to race motocross growing up, I would love to do the baja one day (especially after watching the documentary “Dust to Glory”), and I think it would be cool to be a pro athlete. Anyway, this dude knew all the info about the race, race teams, strategy etc. It was fun listening to him. After about 30 min. of waiting the racers were finally getting near the finish line. We stood up on a cement wall to get a better vantage point. They sprinted in and it was over. The finish was sort of bland to watch. I would not recommend someone travel very far to watch the finish of a cycling event unless they really like the sport.

After the race we went over to see Thom’s friend’s son who had done the race. Apparently Thom coached this kid in ice hockey when he was a little runt. The kids name is Taylor and he now races for Team Slipstream. His bio can be seen here:

http://www.amgentourofcalifornia.com/Peloton/
teams/team-slipstream/bio-tolleson.html

When we got over to his team trailer he was being interviewed by a few people. He was also trying to scarf down some food like cookies and some smashed up jelly pastry thing. It would be somewhat annoying to have to do interviews immediately after finishing something like a 94.6-mile bike race before you even get a chance to change or eat something. Whatever, that’s the life of a pro athlete. This kid was very skinny. In fact, all the pro racers are extremely skinny. I think I could be halfway decent at cycling, but I know I would have to drop a lot of my size and quite frankly, I would rather not be 6’3” and 150 lbs. I don’t think that would be a good look for me. Anyway, apparently Taylor is big for a cyclist and his teammates call him “muscle beach”. I guess all things are relative. I would be laughed out of a bodybuilding competition and he is big enough to be called “muscle beach” in the cycling community.

After we chatted with Taylor for a few minutes we decided to make our way to the Tied House to hear Floyd Landis speak. Floyd is the pro cyclist who won the Tour de France race last year, but then tested positive for steroids. He is going around the country telling his side of the story and trying to raise money for his legal team. Apparently he has over $500,000 in legal fees. Thom and I got to the Tied House and met up with his friend Joel. We were at least 1 ½ hours early, but it wasn’t worth going home and coming back, so we watched the Sharks game on TV, ate some fried food, and drank some beer.

Floyd’s PR lady came up to the three of us at the bar and explained that her staff wasn’t going to make it for this event, she had to do everything herself, and if we would help her out, then she would give us free admission, drinks, merchandise, and we could meet Floyd. Since we’re all extremely nice guys we decided to help out. About 30 minutes later she told me I was going to be Floyd’s bodyguard for the night. I thought she was joking, but I guess that’s what happens when you’re 6’3”, 215 lbs and you shave your head. She handed me the agenda for the night, broken down to the exact minute, and told me I was going to be the only person right next to Floyd the entire night. She explained that some fans and some people who aren’t supporters get pretty weird around the superstar cyclist. I have to admit I thought it was pretty cool to be given this job. Then I thought about it a bit more and realized I could get hurt or I’m basically saying my life or health is worth less than his. Luckily it was a very tame crowd.

Here’s a not so attractive photo of me right behind Floyd as we made our entrance into the courtyard:

http://trustbut.blogspot.com/2007/02
/fff-in-sj-piles-on-lndd-arbs-in-action.html

It was interesting to hear the Powerpoint presentation from his media people, but I have to admit that I’m a skeptical person. This comes from going to graduate school for a science related degree. I want to see some evidence to support claims and I don’t believe things are as black and white as many people believe. I was very impressed by how well the young professional speaker for Floyd communicated. I did not think the evidence they presented fully made a case for his innocence. In fact, I thought some of their information avoided the issues. Nevertheless the entire crowd was in support of Floyd. It was pretty obvious that my only job would be to keep fans out of his face when he didn’t have time to talk.

Rather than discuss any specific points of this case, let me refer you to a blog called “Trust But Verify”. This blog presents a huge amount of information relating to the Floyd Landis case. The contributors try to be as objective as possible, but openly admit they are biased towards Floyd. They are however looking for writers who are biased against Floyd, but who would try to be as objective as possible. Anyway, here’s the link:

http://trustbut.blogspot.com/

Additional resources for this case can be found here:

http://www.archive.org

Search for Floyd Landis to get access to presentations by his team (doctors, PR people etc.), official documents etc. related to the case.

While Floyd was signing autographs I was standing right behind him so I got to hear all the conversations between him and his fans. I witnessed a lady come up four separate times for different reasons. She cried because she was so excited to meet him. She made him read a section in her diary. She asked him cheesy questions as she looked longingly in his eyes. It was pretty whacky. I heard one lady say, “I have a stupid question. Why would an endurance athlete take testosterone anyway? I can understand that EPO stuff, but I don’t understand how testosterone would help.” To which Floyd responded, “it doesn’t”.

For a few minutes I got to sit down with Floyd and drink a beer. This was interrupted by a request for an interview from someone at ESPN. Anyway, during my brief time with Floyd he asked what I did for a living. I then asked him if he did any strength training for cycling. He said the only thing he did to prepare for the Tour de France was ride his bike.

Oh yeah, I guess I should mention that Thom and Joel were put to work selling Floyd merchandise. They were in charge of collecting all the money for the Floyd Fairness Fund. That’s a scary thought! I was also in charge of collecting the money during the autograph session. It was a random, but interesting night.

There were more bizarre events that occurred, but this is getting long winded. I’ll conclude by saying Floyd was one of the absolute nicest men I’ve ever met. He didn’t say a single bad thing about anyone, even when people were asking him somewhat loaded questions and he had to work very hard to not say anything negative. I personally think the majority of pro athletes in all sports take illegal ergogenic aids. I am also able to separate his nice personality with the thought that he did in fact use drugs. I personally hope that he did not use drugs and the upcoming hearing will find in his favor, but like always I’m skeptical. Nevertheless, it will be interesting to see what happens with this case.