zerailleur.com / Zach Bell

so I have been inching closer to the top of the results sheet and honestly it is a good thing but I would be lying if I said I was not finding things a little frustrating. I got 3rd in the National Time trial Championships again this year. This is great considering I came of a really tough camp in T town. then we had the prologue of the Tour de Delta Last night and I finished 5th just under a second out of 2nd place. So a fair result. So why is this frustrating well last year I was more or less peaked for these races…I was on the best form of the road year around this time. With the Olympics I have put a lot of energy into NOT being 100% for these races…so at the moment it feels a bit like a step backwards. Races I have felt on fire for in the past I am suddenly putting secondary. So my performances from the previous year are not “better”. It is making me feel a little stale. But in reality it is just what I need if I am going to fly at the big show. But it is frustrating when I see some of my other competitors moving forward even though they ARE also doing the games. I just keep reminding myself that there is energy they will not have for the games. You only have a few amazing performances a year in this sport I think. Every time I think I am about to have one it is like I reach out and stuff it back in the bottle with some hard training. The hope I guess is that if I can open up that bottle at the games all these flickers of amazing efforts will burst out as an eruption of Olympic caliber performance. However as an first time olympian, it makes me nervous. I have a hard time rectifying in my own mind that in an olympic year I am almost intentionally having a series of slightly fatigue induced sub standard performances. Pretty good rides but not steps forward like I had been taking every year in the past. I guess when you are where I am at, an olympian with a shot, but not a favorite, you really do have to sacrifice everything in order to get that one big result. If you don’t have that bottle completely full you are not going to have it in the biggest race in the sport. That is the theory I am working with. But it takes a lot of faith in the program you are doing to trust that a year lacking in sparks will lead to the explosion. But I guess all it takes sometimes is the one little spark if the tank has just been pumped full of fuel. It is a good thing I have faith. I guess that is why going to the olympics is kind of like a religious experience. You really have to trust the people you are working with…if you don’t you really are floundering around for nothing.