Day Thirty Nine: Eduardo’s Road To Fitness

I quite fancy the idea of time travel.  It would be great on a dull afternoon, you know, the kind of afternoon where the television is showing nothing but monotonous programmes on house restoration, snooker matches or live darts matches. Personally I would rather jab darts into my own eyes than watch a live darts contest.

So you are bored at home. How about keying a date and a destination into your time machine.  Let’s say August the 15th, 1969, destination Max Yasgur’s farm, Bethel, New York, to watch Woodstock.  Now that would be a bit of a blast, all that hippy love, reefers the size of Cuban cigars mixed with wild and crazy music.  Sounds like a good alternative to watching another BBC report on the credit crunch.

I wouldn’t mind watching Muhammad Ali regain his heavyweight boxing title from George Foreman in the match referred to as the ‘Rumble in the Jungle’ held on October 30, 1974, in Kinshasa, Zaire known now as the Democratic Republic of the Congo. I wonder if you would have to enter the old country name into the time machine, or the current one?  It got me thinking about the practical issues of time travel, of which there are many, as you might expect.  The least of which being that at present, in this time at least, the Japanese have not yet invented one.

So is time travel actually possible? I thought about that whilst I dazed out of the window, a light breeze blowing in from the balcony. If it is possible why did we not see time travellers from the future popping in for a look at the Wimbledon final, or see them walking around La Ramblas for a look at how life was in 2008? Time tourists should be all over the place, gawping at us long ago in 2008.  Unless of course people from the future can only travel back in time to the point where time travel was invented and introduced.  By which I mean, if we invent a means to travel back and forth in time in the year 2,500, we can only use it from that point forwards and backwards after 2,500, not earlier.

Back to the subject of fitness.  I bet you are wondering what the hell this has got to do with my road to fitness. Well not a huge amount to be honest but time travel was on my mind.  I was wondering how age affects one’s athletic performance and mused upon what it would be like for the forty year old Eduardo Remedios to travel back in time to race against a twenty year old Eduardo Remedios.

It would be interesting to see what the differences would be.  How fast or slow would I be compared to a sixteen year-old version of myself in the 100-metre sprint? What about on the bike over two hundred kilometres? Would the endurance gained over the years compensate for the lack of youth? What about tactics and experience, grit and determination – I am sure I have more of that than I did when I was younger.

I thought about the impending comeback of Lance Armstrong.  Aged thirty-seven he has announced his return to cycling and plans to race at the highest level again. Yesterday the Tour of Spain ended with a final stage in Madrid.  The three-week long bike race was won by the aptly nick-named ‘Kid Contador’, a fresh faced, twenty five year old whose full name is Alberto Contador.

How will the older cyclist fare? He is approaching middle age.  A time when a lot of men are slowing down, entrenched in life’s little routines, exercise may mean a sporadic game of squash or the occasional trip to the gym where they try a few cardio machines, lift a few ‘classic’ weights or try not to embarrass themselves with a fit-ball.

In an interview with Vanity Fair, when asked about his age, Lance Armstrong was quoted as saying:

“Look at the Olympics. You have a swimmer like Dara Torres. Even in the 50-meter event [freestyle], the 41-year-old mother proved you can do it. The woman who won the marathon [Constantina Tomescu-Dita, of Romania] was 38. Older athletes are performing very well. Ask serious sports physiologists and they’ll tell you age is a wives’ tale. Athletes at 30, 35 mentally get tired. They’ve done their sport for 20, 25 years and they’re like, I’ve had enough. But there’s no evidence to support that when you’re 38 you’re any slower than when you were 32.

It will certainly be a spectacular sporting moment next year when he rolls down the start ramp of the 2009 Tour de France.  I am told it will be passing through Barcelona.  I will definitely attend.  I will keep an eye out for time travel tourists, for I am sure, that if it is possible, someone will want to come and watch a bit of history.

All I need to do now to liven up my day is find a flux capacitor and hit 88mph.

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