Exceptional

M., as it turns out, is a champ. Not just for having won last Saturday's Madrid women's open mountain biking champion; before she got into biking, she was also a national champ in competitive swimming. But I didn't hear all of this from her. In fact, when I congratulated her on her win, she kind of blew it off in the same way people sometimes blow off my mangle attempts at cross-cultural humour. I had to hear it from Yago, who's known her for a couple of years and has been coaching her for a while.

From what I've seen, M. isn't necessarily fond of being known for being a champ. I had to hear it from Yago. In a sense this is probably a positive thing, because if M. had been honest about her athletic achievements from the start, I would definitely have hesitated against going out with her. (Who needs to suffer up a Cat 1 climb knowing that you're getting your butt kicked by an Olympic-calibre athlete?) Not that thhat would make M. any less fun to be around - she's got that grace and open-ness that you find in the greatest people who come from Córdoba. And it's an enormous relief to have someone to train with who's not going to leave me vomiting in a ditch somewhere.

Chris chalks it up to humility and to a certain point, I agree. Nobody wants to ride with a blowhard unless it means kicking said blowhard's butt. But this wasn't humility. It was the kind of downturned eyes-pursed lips-subject quickly changed denial of the truth that you sometimes witness in older survivors of the Spanish Civil War - a kind of physical shutting down of the subject that drives you to discuss Real Madrid or wind or food additives or how to stop cleats from squeaking, anything just to keep the conversation flowing enough, so that new words can replace the embarrassing ones. A momentary flicker, but there nonetheless. So we talk about other things, about the Clásica de los Puertos or Quebrantahuesos or about power meters, and all I can think of is, You know, if I'd had a gym teacher who was as cool as you were when I was a kid, I wouldn't have waited until mid-life to make a go of this. I might have taken my body and my possibilities a little more seriously.

But I don't say anything, or at least, if I say something, I say it in English, to Yago, mostly later when M. is out of earshot. She wouldn't have told me that of her own volition, would she? I ask him, and he shakes his head no.

To each her own. But at the same time, I feel sad that there's something there that prevents her from talking about it, something that goes beyond aw-shucks reticence.