Try A Thaw Lawn Thyme.
Yes! It’s that time of year again, when a young man’s fancy turns to… athletic endeavors?
Such is the case for me, as I embark, bolstered by a successful Tour of Anchorage ski race finish, into the Summer Triathlon Series here in Alaska.
So, Triathlon – that’s a technical term meaning three athlons. The traditional athlons, predictably, are things I’m not very good at. The first athlon is swimming. Now, I did do some swimming in high school, but it was decidedly something I did not excel at. I did manage to escape drowning, but merited accomplishments beyond this are scarce. I think the most valuable thing I learned from my Swim Team tenure was the proper pronunciation of the word “chamois.” Bear in mind that this was long before the Sham-Wow.
Now, it has been nearly twenty (20!) years since I have swum competitively, or even swum for exercise. Of course, I’m not including years of hot-tubbing, but I think its exclusion is rather justified.
To remedy such a staggering hiatus, I have enrolled in Master’s Swim classes. I start Thursday. I hope my waterwings still fit.
With the swimming aspect being handled (in my mind) adequately, I then turn my sights to the next athlon; biking.
The most difficult aspect of biking, naturally, is that one requires a bicycle to do it. This, I do not have, at least by any meaningful definition. I still have the mountain bike I used in high school, and it happens to be old enough to vote. It’s also heavy enough to disrupt the Earth’s rotation if I went up a hill, which is nearly impossible, re: its weight.
As luck would have it, a wonderful individual offered a bike designed specifically for road use to me, and I plan on using that. I am also hoping to borrow a trainer to allow the bike to be used in a stationery (stationary? Whichever one doesn’t involve paper products) manner.
That solved, I must turn my attention to my least favorite activity; running. As I mentioned ages ago in this very blog, I am not remotely adept at running. Not even to save my life. I’m not exactly sure why this is. Perhaps it’s because running is an activity I absolutely despise. All I can think about is how much my entire body hurts the moment I begin to run. That said, I do plan on running, at least for the duration required by the local triathlons. We’ll see if I can finish in sufficient time to prevent my body from completely rattling to bits.
So there we have it, my plan of a trifecta of athlonic activities. Which should be doable should I manage to keep my waterwings inflated, bike from voting (or running for Congress), and body from rattling asunder.
I’ll be the one with the chamois.
