Triathlons for Dummies

Who's the dummy here? Why, me of course. I'm doing the Danskin triathlon in about a month. Am I ready? Um. No. Do I have time to prepare? Um, again, no. Am I gonna do it anyways? Hell yes.

The first year I signed up for the Danskin, which is a five-thousand participant women's sprint length triathlon, I missed the swim for reasons I can't really go into. I almost threw in the towel and walked away in disgust but my better half encouraged me to finish it anyway since I was there and all. So I did.

Then last year I signed up again but for yet more reasons I can't go into, had to bail on the whole thing. Didn't even show up. I did do the Summit to Surf ride, with the assistance of my very good friends Karen and John, who kindly drove me there and picked me up and took me to a huge meal afterward. It is a 36-mile ride from Mt. Hood Meadows down into Hood River, Oregon. Lovely ride, chilly on the way down but quite thrilling. It winds through orchards laden with fruit, the trees so heavily burdened that the branches are supported with long boards to keep them from breaking and to keep the fruit off the ground. A large part of it is downhill but a lot of it is also not downhill so not to worry, it's not a free ride. It's work.

It is a fundraiser for diabetes research and I am happy to say that this year I am doing it again and will meet my modest fundraising goal, thanks to many generous individuals who ponied up the cash. It is in about a week and a half.

Tonight I went on a short (12.8 miles), easy-paced ride with a local bicycling club. I took my neighbor from down the street. I mentioned to her some time ago that I was doing a tri this year and she mulled it over for a while, then decided she wanted to do it too! We are not doing the same race but we can help each other out training. She was very nervous about the ride tonight but made it just fine and we have some plans to ride again next week as well as do some open-water swimming too. It's nice to have a friend to do some of this stuff with. The women who took us on the ride were super nice, very friendly, nobody ridiculed anybody else's bike or anything like that. We just rode. And, because this was an estrogen-fueled event, we stopped and gabbed a lot, and were all super supportive to each other before the two "minor" hills.

One of which I stood up and powered my way up when it got steep! I haven't done that in years. So there, hill! Eat my padded shorts! MUWAHAHAHA!

And now I need a wee lil' nap. Goodnight all.