willpowerthru

You know when you commit to doing something athletic and then you show up on the day all nervous that you are going to be pretty god-awful, and just not able to do the thing at all…but then once you start getting into it and doing it you realize it’s not that bad and you actually do MUCH better than you thought you were going to do?

That absolutely did not happen to me today.
What did happen today were these things:

I showed up, found out that you need a bike helmet to compete (which I did not bring):

Thankfully I used my friend Luke’s cell phone to call papa bear Konowitz, he brought me one and gave it to Deanna to give to me at the race. Disaster averted.

I hung near the back of the pack with Luke on the beach so that we wouldn’t be manhandled by people that actually knew what they were doing during the swim portion of the triathlon.

Luke actually knew what he was doing, I did not:

I think if you Google: “Men who wear Underarmor shirts that should not be wearing Underarmor shirts” this picture should probably be #1. Tubby.
About half-way through the swim portion I passed three people in the water. They were Asian. I did not feel impressive. I actually remember thinking two things: 1. There are Asian people in this area? 2. Asians must not be good swimmers if I’m passing them.

I made it to the beach and felt like swamp thing trudging out of the water.

Deanna was there to give me my helmet and laugh directly in my face:

That should be the example picture for everything athletic that I do in my whole life.

I should mention that these pictures are from my dad, and he’s really good at taking photos, so thanks pops! Then I should mention that he always seems to catch me looking as dumb as possible (or maybe that’s just me being dumb like, all the time). Case in point, here’s me starting off on the 12 mile bike ride:

No, I don’t know what I was doing. Yes the helmet didn’t fit correctly so I had to let the straps flow in the wind. Ladies, the line forms to the left. 😉

Everyone competing was really nice except there was one lady that passed me on the bike stage. I got very used to hearing “On your left” or “left”, meaning I was being passed. That’s fine, I was allllllll the way over to the right hand side of the road and it was totally cool that people were passing me. That being said, there was ONE woman that passed me on the left and said, “LEFT! GOD!” very annoyed-like. I have no idea what that was all about, as I was the only one on the road that she was passing, very strange. She seemed like the kind of woman that exercises so much, she just doesn’t care about being a woman. Like, “DAMN THESE TITS GET THEM OFF MY BODY SO I CAN FINISH THIS RACE FASTER ARGGGGGGGGGGG”.

Odd.

So the bike actually was the least terrible part of the entire day for me, I think I did ok on that part anyway. The only time I stopped was when my chain came off my bike at the 6 mile turn around part of the bike stage. I fixed it in like 4 minutes and was back on the road. When I got off the bike I almost fell down, my legs felt like jelly and I no one told me to watch out for that. DICKS.

So after the 1/4 mile swim and the 12 mile bike, there was a 3.something mile run walk. I counted to 200 in my head walking, then ran/jogged for a 30 count, then back to walking for another 200…it was the only way my fat ass was going to run at all during the running portion.

By now you might be wondering how long I took. Well I took a VERY long time. Here’s a picture of my mom and Deanna and the parents’ dog Stella waiting for me to finish. Notice the lack of everyone else waiting for anyone else:

That’s really f*cking sad.

My friend Matt (who finished in half my time) saw me when I was just about to die and made me run some more. He’s a jerk.

He actually came back and ran with me for a bit. I take back the ‘jerk’ comment. Almost.

After it’s all said and done I will at least say this. I signed up for this shit last week and didn’t train for it at all. You know what? I finished a triathlon today:

My time was something like 2 hours and 20 minutes.

Then almost passed out:

Bucket list item CROSSED OFF.

I’m going to celebrate tonight with tons of food. YAY FOOD.

You know who I feel bad for? People that actually do triathlons and are good at them. Now there’s some fat idiot going around that can actually say, “I’m a triathlete”.

My Bucket List until December 31st 11:59pm of 2012 is as follows:

1. Dunk a basketball.
   
2. Raise 500 dollars of other people’s money for the LaPorte Small Animal Shelter (It’s easy to donate, harder to raise those funds).
3. Go on a 4 day weekend getaway somewhere tropical by myself.
4. Meet a famous person, people from reality TV don’t count. Also I have to shake their hand in order for it to count.
5. Become SCUBA certified.
6. Attempt to break a Guinness World Record Most people in one place wearing sunglasses at night! 7/6/2012! Wrigley Field!
7. Learn to play one entire song on an instrument.
8.  Start a side business, or create some form of secondary revenue stream. *Your multi-level marketing pyramid scheme is not what I’m looking for, sorry*
9.  Achieve one of the following: 1) Weigh 205 pounds. 2) Have under 10% body fat 3) Have noticeable abs
10.  Bungee Jump (I’m 100% f*cking terrified of heights)
11.  Learn to Juggle four beanbags at once.
12.  Complete a sprint triathlon LaPorte YMCA Sprint Triathlon Saturday, August 4th Two Hours and Twenty Minutes