I'm about to commit adultery -- yes, I'm looking for a sports bike, not to take part in the upcoming Tour de France, you understand, but in order to improve my running time. Biking, apparently, boosts 5k and 10k performance times, a concept that is a hard pill to swallow for a runner. Most runners regard any time spent doing another sport as a wasteful distraction from the main event, but I thought the time was ripe for a bit of sporting infidelity.
It's a timely move with the Tour de France on the horizon, giving me a whole week to get into biking shape. The TdF has,of course, been totally dominated by Lance Armstrong for almost as long as anyone can remember. This has had two positive functions: it has given endless pleasure to small-minded, mean-spirited people like myself who enjoy seeing the French beaten in
their race on
their home territory (even if it is by an American); and, for those who follow more closely, it has demonstrated again and again the need for team work. Armstrong could not have won without an outstanding team of brilliant cyclists who were prepared to sacrifice their shot for the individual top spot in order to engineer a vistory for the team and, above all, Armstrong himself. The psychology is absolutely fascinating, particularly when you see the gruelling training and the brutal racing conditions which these important, but unsung heroes of the Armstrong era endured. A brilliant analogy, it would seem to me, with the way the church is to function not as a collection of individual egos but as a team built around self-sacrifice which therefore allows the glory to go to the only one who really counts. Of course, the average waist measurement of the average pastor indicates we're a long way from Tour de France territory -- too many big pastors in charge of big churches, one might say. Let's just hope that the egos are inversely porportional to suit size; and let's require of our local church leadership teams no less a commitment to self-effacement than is found in the best cycling teams.
