REALLY "TRI" ING


are floaties allowed?

Wednesday, July 6, 2011

T minus 11 days.


You know what the problem is when you get out of the pool and start riding your bike when you are soaking wet?  You are riding your bike soaking wet.

Last night started out great.  Got home from work, whipped up a meatloaf for dinner (yum), donned my magical tri-suit and headed to the pool.  Sidebar:  I have not always thought meatloaf was yummy.  When I was younger I hated it.  It was one of my least favorite foods.  Hated it more than carrots or liver or beets.  When I was in the second grade I had to have my tonsils out.  Back then it involved an overnight stay in the hospital.  My mom stayed with me until dinner time.  She gave me a present.  Velvet.  A beautiful blond doll with a purple dress.  When you pushed a button on her back and pulled her ponytail her hair would grow.  She was beautiful.  The nurse came in with a dinner tray.  She put a plate in front of me.  Spaghetti.  My favorite.  My mom said she had to leave.  Ok, I was fine. I was better than fine.  I was great.  I had Velvet.  I had spaghetti.  I loved this place.  My mom left.  I picked up my fork to start my dinner.  The nurse came back.  "I'm sorry, dearie.  There's been a mistake.  This isn't your dinner."  She took my spaghetti away.  "This is."  She put a new plate in front of me.  I looked down.  Meatloaf.
 I became a nurse so no kid would ever have to eat meatloaf in the hospital again. Not on my watch.

I did my swim in my neighbor's pool.  I had to have some measure of comfort, of the familiar, if it was going to be a combined swim and bike night.  So many good times, so many happy memories in that pool.  That was then.  This is now.  Now I have goggles so tight the skin on the sides of my eyes touches the back of my head.  Now I make so many waves when I flail swim that I create a tsunami, gulp gallons of water and get an ocean up my nose.  Now the fifteen minutes I need to spend is this pool is taking so long the clock is ticking backwards and it is last Friday.

I get out of the pool and slip-slide over to the bike.  In my tri-suit. Which is wet.  Dripping wet.  There are no big, fluffy towels.  There are no dry clothes.  There are no hairdryers.  I put my helmet over my wet hair.  My long, thick, sopping wet hair.  My it-takes-twelve-hours-to-dry-naturally-on-a-hot day sopping wet hair.  I slither onto the bike and start off.

I am fairly certain, dear 10 followers and 2 lurkers, you can imagine how I felt about that bike ride.  How I felt to be wet and stay wet for the next 45 minutes.  How I felt to use all my energy not to pedal but just to keep from sliding off the seat.

I felt like I had just been given meatloaf for dinner in the hospital.

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