all of them, the bad as well as the good. Are those old training journals great, or what? They enable you to relive those multitudinous moments of greatness, as well as laugh at the occasional miserable flops. The GPS gizmos and ride mapping aids of today are useful for the neat graphs and charts they produce measuring cadence and watt output, and what all. They can tell you what is going on at the moment, and maybe predict what will happen in the days or weeks ahead if you follow a predictable course. But what will they tell you in the future? Not much, unless they are accompanied by a written account of what really went down in the present. It is often surprising how much a mind can forget. Those journals also provide handy blog topic fodder; whether they should or not is another matter.
Case in point - September 15, fifteen years in the past. I recorded: "Ah, La Mirada, same course but without the sweltering heat of years past. Unfortunately, I end the year as I began - by being dropped. Barely made the start and this is not a race where you want to be at the back. The drop came on lap three and I quickly and stealthily took my leave to await and prepare for next year." Such are the vagaries of bicycle racing; just the day prior I had noted how well I rode on the Montrose Ride, and that doing so had encouraged me to race La Mirada. It was a rather inconsistent year. Anyway document those little things, you never know what might be significant, in whatever small way, years from now.
Fred Pierce leads the field through at the 1992 La Mirada Grand Prix
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