Life Gets Easy

Said the coal to the diamond, "Why so hard?" Said the diamond to the coal, "Why so soft? Life is hard. Be hard!" (paraphrase of The Hammer Speaks story) -- Nietzsche.

Recently life, my life, has gotten easy, not hard.  Let me explain.

For the last three years I have participated in the local Y's sprint triathlon.  "Sprint" means "short," but still 1.5 to 1.75 hours of intense aerobic exercise is pain-inducing.  One of my motivations for doing this was to see how I compare to my peers, and I learned not too well.  Here are my peer group results:

• 2012: 4 of 6
• 2013: 6 of 7
• 2014: 9 of 9

I swore that I would not participate this year but they introduced a new event called Aquabike (500 m swim, 20 km bike, no run).  My time was okay -- 1 hour and 16 minutes.  And I won my age bracket (full disclosure: I was the only one in my age bracket).  Life gets easy.

Here's another example.  I always wanted to teach a calculus course.  Why? Because I never really learned calculus (it's a long story) and I know that the best way to learn a subject is to teach it.  Well I do teach MAT135 Business Pre-calculus and maybe someday the school will schedule me to teach MAT136 Business Calculus.  In any case, these courses are not hard.  Life gets easy.

So maybe Nietzsche is wrong.  Life is not hard.  At least not all of the time.

My First Aquabike Event

Did I participate in the UMLY triathlon this year? No,  Did I try the new aquabike (swim + bike) event? Yes.

The swim event was run entirely different from previous years.  Instead of a wave start where about 12 people swim in the pool at one time, followed by another wave, each swimmer was started about one minute apart and you swam a zig-zag pattern across the pool.  It worked!

I was amazed that I even passed someone in the pool.  This only happens when a) the passer is a very fast swimmer or b) the passee lied about her estimated time for swimming 500 meters.  Let's dispel a) right away as I am not a fast swimmer.  The woman I passed must be really slow, but gave a really optimistic time estimate.

The bike route was longer than before and had quite a few new turns to stay on course.  I had practiced the route the week before, however I still managed to miss a turn.  On the return route there was a cop signalling to me to make a left hand turn from Sugartown onto Church Rd.  Due to a brain freeze I zipped right past him following the route from the previous year.  I quickly realized my mistake, braked hard, and circled back.  I even apologized to the cop for my mistake (did I think he was going to give me a ticket?).  Must have added 20 seconds to my overall time.

A final comment on my placement.  First the good news -- I finished first in my age bracket.  Now the bad news -- I was the only one in my age bracket and was last among the six male finishers.   I still had fun (but no photos at all).

Swim (500 m) 15:13
Transition          5:50
Bike (20 km)   55:54
Total             1:16:17

My Last Sprint Triathlon (sort of)

You might think I am really getting faster from year to year.  You would be wrong.  On the day of the race I learned that they shortened the bike route due to potholes on one of the major downhills of the course.  Makes sense -- don't want anyone crashing their bike due to a pothole.  Right before my start I overheard someone say that they changed the running route.  Okay, probably just a tweak to the route that's been used since the event was established.

Now as I completed the swim, and finished the bike ride, I started the run which is the most god-awful physical experience one can bear.  Getting off the bike my legs are crampy and I start running with tiny strides because it feels like elastic bands are attached between my legs.  I don't feel like running 5 meters let alone 5 kilometers.  Soon I discover that they completely re-routed the course.  I have no idea how far I've run or how far I still have to go.  I ask a volunteer at a water station and just get a "I don't know."

Okay, I finished but I vowed this was my last sprint triathlon.  Why? Besides hating the run at the end, I hate the training prior to the event.  A heavy training day (even a light training day) leaves me exhausted for the rest of the day.  I also have a light headache which I learned is called an "exercise headache." Only a sick man would do this to himself.

Final note: This posting was written in 2015 almost a full year after the event.  I was going to give up this event when the Y announced a couple of variations:
- sprint triathlon (500 m. swim, 10 km. bike, 5 km. run)
- duathlon (5 km. run, 500 m. swim, 5 km. run)
- aquabike (500 m. swim, 20 km. bike)

Now that aquabike event looks interesting...