The Secret Race - Tyler Hamilton, Daniel Coyle - 2012

 

I think Scott’s review was not really fair to this book. He said it was good and worth reading but I think it is much better than that, especially if you are an endurance athlete. 

The legal angle is very interesting. The personal angle is really good. The cheating scandal is intriguing and the bike racing is awesome. The moral value about telling the truth is important. Even though the protagonist was a cheater too, his story teaches you to never give up and to try hard at life no matter what happens. There is a lot of honest humanity in this book.   

This should most definitely be added to our staff picks and this is a must read for any endurance athlete and probably for all people. I think this book is highly highly underrated. 

I listened to this one and I think this was better than reading because I could hear the emotion in the reader’s voice. This made the race commentary segments so much better. 

My view on doping: Before reading this book I would have said they cheated and they are evil. After reading this book I think cheating was wrong but that I may have cheated in their situation. They were in a really bad spot. 

On Lance Armstrong: To me Lance’s problem is purely psychological. He did not know his father and therefore never really knew who he (Lance) was. This caused internal anger and frustration and caused him to link his identity with winning. So he became a liar and a cheater and a bully and an all around terrible person. Before reading this book I knew he cheated, but now I realize he cheated much worse than I thought (they all cheated pretty badly) and was a real bully to many teammates and other people. 

I can relate to Lance because my identity (for reasons I never understand; I guess it is genetic) is always tied up in my performance and I get so angry if I lose and can never comprehend losing. Like Lance, it is as if I have an allergic reaction to it. 

Tyler says his depression is genetic. I am not sure if that is possible, but I found this interesting. 

I feel bad about Haven. She and Tyler seemed so good. How old was his new girlfriend and did they ever have kids? She was getting her master’s so I am assuming she is younger than him?

The bike racing community loved weight loss, but if I lose a lot of weight I don’t have enough energy to compete. How did they compete so light? Did the doping cancel out the lack of energy? Is weight loss really so important? This is a question that I can never figure out. 

I did not know Lance dated Sheryl Crow.

Lance’s marathon pr is 246 something, but I am not sure if he was doping at the time or not. His vo2 max was 84 or 82 as mentioned in the book. (They did not mention his marathon pr in the book. I just looked it up because I was curious. Lance is almost 55 years old now). 

I wish this book had been written now so I could follow the story up to the present. Since 2012 I am sure a lot more has happened. I think Lance has since made a confession.

I love the parts where Tyler says he pushed himself to the edge and then beyond the edge and was completely spent. To me that is what racing and running and endurance sports are all about and why I participate. You get to see what you have on the inside. You get to and have to give everything in the race. 

I cannot believe the case against Lance was totally dropped by the feds after so much time, money, and effort had gone into it. There is a recurring lesson here. I learned this reading the Missoula book written by Krakauer and in reading about the O.J. Simpson trials. The federal government seems to struggle in court in criminal cases but if it is a civil case or a non US government body is the prosecutor (for example the world anti doping agency) it is easier to convict the offender because the legal bar for conviction is lower (again think preponderance of evidence in civil court vs. beyond a reasonable doubt in criminal court). Also an international governing body has less bureaucracy to fight through compared to the U.S. government. 

This is a truly amazing story. I was alive when all of this was happening and really had no idea any of this was going on and how well planned the cheating schemes were. These people straight up cheated badly for years and definitely knew that they were cheating. It seems to me that the cycling governing body (uci) basically knew everyone was cheating but did not care as much as it should have because it wanted more viewership for the sport or because it was friendly with some of the biggest cheaters such as Lance. 

The strategy of bike racing was also new to me. Essentially each team  has a leader (or two) and everyone else tries to keep the leader as fresh as possible so he can get the best overall time in the race. Before reading this book, I knew there were teams, but I did not really realize that each team was essentially picking one of their teammates each race to win.

Also the whole setup with secret doctors and secret phones and code text messages is crazy. The dope doctors are crazy.  I had no idea. 

After reading this book I feel like my life is terribly boring. Tyler’s story is nonfiction and true and it is really really crazy and incredible. Some people have such super interesting lives! 

So please please please (Sabrina Carpenter jajaja) read this book and be amazed. Thanks Scott for the recommendation. You’re welcome! I am going to tell my mom to read this right now. Peace!!