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My high school soccer coach was always blabbing about the qualities of successful athletes. He
loved reciting The Five D’s: Drive, Determination, Dedication, Discipline, Don’t give
me any lip kid! Coach also adored acronyms (WIN = Willpower + Initiative + kNowledge). And he
had quite an affinity for inspirational sayings such as: “There’s no ’I’ in
team”; “The dictionary is the only place where Success comes before Work”; and
“Anybody who makes fun of my sayings gets benched for the season.”
But like everything else about high school—except driver’s ed, typing class, and
hanging out in the boys’ bathroom—Coach’s lessons proved worthless in the outside
world. Forget the clichés. The key to athletic success is sandbagging.
Sand what?
Sandbagging is the art of sabotaging your opponent or training partner (and, really, is there a
difference?) with mind games. You downplay your fitness. You plant seeds of doubt with an
innocent remark about her aging sports equipment or his unusually pale complexion. You
drastically underestimate the distance, terrain, or pace of the day’s workout. You use
every dirty trick in the book to win, just like in real life!
How can you become a champion sandbagger—or just learn to recognize one? Simply
study our handy Sandbagger’s Translation Guide. Soon you too will be crushing your
ex-friends’ egos.
Sandbagger Translation Guide
Sandbagger says: “Take it easy on me, OK? I’m really out of shape.”
Really means: “I’ve been working out 25 hours a week for the past 3 months
with my personal trainer, Sven, the Olympic decathlete. You are toast.”
Sandbagger says: “Whoa! When did you get so buff? Looks like I’m in trouble
today.”
Really means: “How ya doin’,
Sandbagger says: “You’ll love this route. It’s pretty flat.”
Really means: “There’s 21,000 feet of elevation gain. Good thing I’ve been
sleeping in my portable altitude-simulation tent. I’ve got more red blood cells than
Dracula at a hemophiliac slumber party.”
Sandbagger says: “I think it’s great that you still use that classic (insert
name of running shoe, bike, ski, ice axe, etc.). I don’t care what those morons at the
Consumer Product Safety Commission say—the old gear still rules!”
Really means: “My brand-new, carbon-fiber, Micro-Cushion, Anti-Swerve gizmo costs
10 times more than your year-old version, but they both perform about the same—except that
now you’re too busy imagining your hospital bill to keep up with me.”
Sandbagger says: “Hope I don’t slow you down too much today. I think I’m
getting a cold.”
Really means: “Every day I ingest $100 worth of vitamins, seaweed extract, and
powdered rhinoceros horn. I eat only organic foods grown by aging hippies in Oregon. I go to
bed at 8 p.m. and get up at 6 a.m. There are more germs on Martha Stewart’s toothbrush
than in my entire body. You’re the one who’s gonna be sick.”
Sandbagger says: “You’ll like working out with our bunch. We just like to have
fun.”
Really means: “We make Game 7 of the World Series look like a quilting
bee.”
Sandbagger says: “’Fraid I’m not going be much competition for you. My
trick knee’s acting up again.”
Really means: “I make weekly visits to my massage therapist, my acupuncturist, my
chiropractor, my yoga instructor, and my Rolfer. My worst injury this decade was a hangnail.
I’m the injurer; you, pal, are the
injuree.”
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