Me and Coach Troy

Spent a little Quality Time with Coach Troy over the weekend.

If you have ever done time on a trainer in front of a Spinervals DVD, you know exactly who I mean.  Fit, authoritative-sounding, pro Triathlete background, some kind of southernish accent, stopwatch.  Coach Troy cajoles and yells and tells you you have to put it on the big ring on the front and the 12 on the back and give me 100% for only 1 minute.  And that 30 seconds is plenty of time to recover before we do it again.

His DVDs have titles like "Suffer O Rama", "Have Mercy", "Bending Crank Arms" and "No Slackers Allowed".  So perhaps we ought not complain, but just about everyone who has ridden with Coach Troy has wanted to throw something at him.  In fact, you wonder if he's out of his mind at times. 

But on "On-the-Road v. 4: Madison WI training ride", we learn that Coach Troy does have a modicum of self-awareness.  For this ride, you're supposed to pretend you're riding with him and three other studs around the Madison Ironman course.  It's about 3 hours, and doesn't have deathly crank-bending interval sets.  In contrast to most of his DVDs, Troy actually rides.  Although he clearly taped most of the commentary after the ride, it's done in a style as if he were riding at that very moment.  He talks, and instructs, and talks.  Actually, if you're alone, he keeps you company if you don't mind a one-way conversation, because at least on this one video, he isn't trying to kill you.

With between 45 and 43 minutes to go, though, find out that Troy knows what we think of him.  Nothing dramatic, but he admits that maybe he is annoying and you might want to turn the volume down and not listen to him. 

It's good to know he's human.