Sprinting Through Week 18

Another week of 2013 down.

I wrote nothing new.  Zip.  Zero.  Nada.  Not even going to show you the graph because there ain’t nothing there.

And that’s ok.

It’s ok because this is actually the first week that I haven’t written anything this year.  And because I was just simply doing other, fun and important, things.  Like finishing Mark Fassett‘s new book, and starting on Rebecca Senese‘s.  Both are friends, and I promised them both feedback, so you gotta do what you gotta do.

But beyond that, I just felt like taking a little break – after finally finishing Pericles, I think that’s an ok thing – and, you know, doing family stuff.

And I ran another triathlon.

But not just me.  You see, a month and a half ago or so, it hit me that the boys from work and I had signed up for the Spring Sprint Triathlon here in San Diego on Cinco de Mayo.  And, of course, Cinco de Mayo is my wedding anniversary.  So I suggested to the better half that maybe she would like to run a triathlon as well, and that unleashed the floodgates.  She thought that was a great idea, and we soon found the the awesome bike shop right around the corner from us has a very affordable (ok, relatively affordable) beginner’s triathlon package.  So we used part of our tax return (and dude, let me tell you, having 4 kids, taking a loss on two side businesses, and having students loans to repay – hers not mine – is great for taxes.  My income tax burden last year, not include FICA, was….wait for it…$95.  It’s good to stick it to the man. 😛 ) and got her hooked up.  She got started training, but as of the end of this week she still was not very confident about her bike, and in particular the clips on her pedals.  So she went to a women’s clinic at the bike shop, and then I took her out riding afterwords, and she felt a lot better.

And then, yesterday, the moment of truth.  Her first triathlon, and my second.

Not a bad looking couple there.  I almost look buff in that wetsuit.  😛

Actually, if I can embark on a little tangent here (yeah, like I haven’t already done that), I feel the need to opine about wetsuits for a bit.  I think I mentioned it before, but during my first Triathlon, the swim frankly sucked.  Yeah, I hadn’t trained in the water as much as I should have.  But adding to the issue was my freaking wetsuit.  I just wore the suit I had from my scuba diving days, a decade or more ago.  Yes yes, I know, I can hear the voices already.  Why haven’t you been diving?  Because the diving sucks in upstate NY, it’s bloody cold in Maine, and to get any good diving in and around Charleston, SC you have to go several dozen miles off the coast.  And that’s where I’ve been living since I transferred away from my first submarine, which was in Pearl Harbor (awesome place…duh).  At least until now.  Anyway, getting back to the wetsuit, that old Oceanic suit is awesome. For diving.  But when you’re scuba diving, you kick yourself around.   You’re not exactly swimming freestyle through the waves.  Suffice it to say that suit was not very flexible about the shoulders.  And beyond that, I am a little bit bigger now than I was then, especially about the chest (I can bench quite a bit more now than I could back in my early to mid 20s.  Yes that’s my story and I’m sticking to it) so the suit was a bit tight, which made it hard to breathe.

Clearly, that situation was unacceptable.  Fortunately for me, the folks who put on this weekend’s triathlon had a great deal worked out with Xterra Wetsuits – 60% off!  So I used their coupon  code and ordered Xterra’s top-of-the-line Vector Pro suit, normally $600, for about $260.  And I must say, this wetsuit rocks.  Talk about easy to move around in.  Swimming in that thing is…well, it’s just SO much easier.  On Thursday after work, the better half and I took the kiddos to Mission Bay, here in San Diego.  They love the beach, but hate big waves (the oldest of our kids is 5.  Duh, of course she hates big waves), so the sheltered bay is perfect.  While we were there, I put on the new suit and swum to a little island a couple hundred yards away, and back again.  Like I said: SO MUCH BETTER.

All that pointed toward this race being awesome.  And it was.  I vastly improved my time over the last one (although in honesty I must point out that the overall course was quite a bit shorter than the SEAL Sprint Triathlon, but still I did proportionally better as well, so that’s good), and the better half finished her first Triathlon ever.

Victory!

After the race, we went and got a late breakfast at a local place in Ocean Beach, and then rolled back to our humble abode, here on Point Loma.  I forked over some bucks (ok more than some) to the babysitter and then we had a nice relaxing Sunday, complete with Pollo Asado, a little Battlestar Gallactica, The Amazing Race, and Game of Thrones.  Not a bad Anniversary, if you ask me.  And best of all, the better half agreed.

Victory!

So, that was my week.  Two weeks from now, the boys from work and I are hitting the OC Triathlon, a little ways north of here.  This one is olympic length – 1500m swim, 24ish mile bike, 6.2 mile run.  So about double the distance of these first two.  It promises to be a challenge, and no doubt I will be a hurting unit afterwords.  But I’m looking forward to it.

And yes, I will indeed get some more writing done as well.  Just as soon as I finish Rebecca’s book.

Speaking of which…