Around this time last year, I had driven up to Penticton, slept in a teenage girl’s room, rooted on my teammates, and got sucked into the excitement and craziness that is Ironman Canada. I had zero intention of signing up with Jason, but watching the spectacle and the support of the entire town and seeing wave after wave of various athletes (elite, beginner, big, small, old, young) finish motivated me to chase after that feeling and experience it on my own. And so I plunked down six hundred big ones and spent a year training for a full Ironman. Now, one year later, the race has finally snuck up on me. Damnit.

On Wednesday I participated in the Swim for Life swim across Lake Washington. Teresa wanted me to do it last year, but they always do the event on a Wednesday morning and I couldn’t get off work…plus I hate swimming. This year, I figured it’d be a good confidence booster before Ironman Canada so I begrudgingly plunked down coinage to swim 2.5 miles from Medina to Madison Park. I told myself it’d be for a good cause (the Puget Sound Blood Center) and for swimming peace of mind leading into Canada. Well, it was for a good cause, but the swim was sucktacular. Sigh. I woke up at 5:30 am and de-groggied as best I could before meeting my swim group at Madison beach at 6:15. The previous several days had been very warm and sunny in Seattle, so naturally the morning of the swim was gray, windy, and chilly. The Weather Gods seriously hate me. When we drove across 520 towards the swim start, we could see the wind whipping the water up against the floating bridge. Of course. The first time I do this stupid race, Lake Washington decides to release the Kraken and try to drown me. This is why I hate swimming. We arrived at Medina and picked up our packets, then watched the wind swirl the chop up so it was nice and terrifying. Docks were swinging, swimmers were chattering and shivering, and I stared across the lake convinced that the shoreline across from me was getting further and further away. There were four waves of swimmers distinguished by their swim caps: Fast, Less Fast, Respectable, and You Swim Like a Toddler with Raptor Arms (also known as the Pink wave). Naturally, Teresa stuck me in the slow wave because she wasn’t certain I’d even be out of the water by the time Ironman Canada started. The event itself started at 7:30, but since I was going last I got to watch a multitude of athletes crawl into the water and promptly get bitch-slapped by the waves. I killed time by trying to look bad-ass in my wetsuit that gives me the illusion of having muscle definition: Eventually it was our turn to climb into Lake Washingmachine. I lucked out since I breathe to my right and the chop was coming from the left, but that was the extent of my good fortune. The first half hour or so went decently — I swam fairly well with my group and sighted off our kayaker since I couldn’t see anything remotely sightable on the other side of the lake. Soon enough, however, I stopped thinking, “Hey, this isn’t so bad” and returned to my regularly scheduled “I hate this shit, this sucks so hard” mindset. I thought about how warm and cozy Jason was still sleeping in bed (all you have to do to get out of Swim for Life is launch yourself 30 feet off your bike) and cursed Teresa for encouraging me to do this. (I tend to curse her a lot when it comes to swimming-related activities. When will the day come where I curse her for buying me a giant delicious cake?) To make matters worse, the chop kicked up and I’d often find myself plunging my left hand into air as a wave would pick me up and toss me around like a rag doll. Even breathing to the right didn’t help much after a while — there’d be rotations where I’d try to breathe and end up catching a flood of water. Even worse than that was the fact that the kayak seemed to instantly disappear, leaving me with...

This is a tapir: This is a taper: Not the most traditional taper, but it’s how Jas and I roll. We’re less than two weeks away from Ironman Canada and have finally started to scale down our workouts. It couldn’t have come a moment too soon — I’m getting burned out on exercising and just want to get this pesky Ironman over with already. The taper’s timing was pretty crucial for us — we had a Portland wedding to go to and the Lake Stevens 70.3 race to spectate, so even though we didn’t have as many training hours, we still had to cram in a bunch of stuff over the weekend. We drove down to Portland Friday night and had dinner with a friend of ours. Jason and I got suckered into having a couple beers with our buddy, and after not having drank much lately because of the relentless onslaught of workouts, a measly two beers made me feel a bit tipsy. Stupid training. On Saturday we woke up and had breakfast with another friend of ours and his girlfriend. It was going to be a super hot day out, plus I didn’t want to run around downtown Portland, so after breakfast I went back to the hotel and ran in the fitness center. My treadmill TV was stuck on MSNBC at full volume, so I ran and watched some “Criminals Caught on Tape” show where the most recent footage was from 2000. After the run, we showered and got a late checkout. Since the wedding wasn’t starting until 6 pm, we had our bags held and figured we’d find a place to change later. We killed time by seeing a movie and getting some food, then we returned to the hotel and got ready for the wedding ghetto-style by sneaking back into the fitness room and changing in the bathroom. At one point someone came in and started using one of the treadmills. We got a weird look when we finally emerged from the bathroom wearing a suit and a dress. I bet she thought we were a crime fighting duo (or that we just got it on in a gym bathroom. Gross!). At this point it was nearly 100 degrees outside, but thankfully the wedding was indoors. Unfortunately, the air conditioning didn’t help too much, and by the time the reception started and people were dancing and acting goofy, we were a sweaty, sticky mess. Since we planned on driving back to Seattle after the wedding, I only had a glass and a half of wine while Jason took it upon himself to drink it up one last time before Ironman Canada. When the dancing started, we had the following exchange: I start dancing in front of him Jason, looking concerned: “How much have you had to drink? Are you going to be okay to drive back?” Me, looking sheepish: “I’m not drunk, I’m just a crappy dancer!” Jason, laughing: “Oh.” Thanks, Jas. Eventually we left the wedding and I drove us back to Seattle. I was tired and thirsty and wondering if I’d be able to get up at 4:30 am to catch the start of the Lake Stevens 70.3. We got stuck in construction traffic (seriously, construction traffic at midnight on a Saturday) and didn’t get home until 1:30 am. Three short, unsatisfying hours later, the alarm went off and Jason got up to head to the race. I was still really tired, so I decided to meet the crew later so I could try and get a bit more sleep. Jason and his dad caught the start of the race and I...

My astute readers will notice that the blog looks distinctly different from its original gangsta look since I launched it in 2008. I was never thrilled with the old blog theme and decided it was time for a little Extreme Makeover: Blog Edition. The new design is more visual than Mediocre Athlete 1.0 — each post has a thumbnail that displays all purdy-like on the homepage. Also, I finally figured out how to add threaded comments, so now you can respond to a comment someone’s posted. It’s the wave of the future! Hope you like the new design — I still have to work out a couple of kinks, but overall I’m pleased with the blog’s new aesthetic. Soon I’ll respond to my regularly scheduled posts about crappy workouts and how I’m getting super burned out on Ironman training and have spent more time eating frozen custard than...

I’ve come across a random assortment of links and stories in the past week or so that I’ve wanted to feature on the blog, so I decided to just throw them into a roundup-type post. I used to do weekly roundup blog posts at an old job and hated how time-consuming they were, but our readers really liked them so I trudged along and tried to spruce them up with my standard Beccanisms. Below are some various stories I’ve come across and have found to be interesting — hope you enjoy them! Kenny Powers is the Perfect Spokesperson for K-Swiss If you’re not familiar with Eastbound and Down, you should definitely watch it. The show’s about a crass ex-baseball player who becomes a gym teacher despite his ignorance about the fact that his professional pitching career is over. I’ve blogged in the past about how much I’ve enjoyed K-Swiss’s ads (and I have a super-comfy pair of K-Swiss shoes that I wear more for fashion purposes than for running), but this current fake commercial combines Kenny Powers, K-Swiss, and crass humor to create an amusing pitch meeting (language NSFW). Kenny Powers Gets Signed By K-Swiss – watch more funny videos And I Thought Jason’s Injuries Were Bad I shared some of the carnage from Jason’s recent bike crash, but I readily admit that they were nowhere near as bad as this guy’s (caution: NSFW). Apparently he was riding with a group of cyclists when the guy in front of him ran over a tree branch that flipped up and impaled him in the shin. What the crap! How fast were these guys riding, like 85 miles per hour? The article has lots of graphic photos of the clearly morphined-up cyclist laying in a hospital bed with a freaking tree sticking out of his leg. I hate this sport. The Classy Way to Win an Ironman Race Professional triathlete Julie Dibens recently won the Ironman 70.3 in Boulder, but she waited five minutes before crossing the finish line to ensure that the females who finish behind her get to have a prize purse. The reason is due to some bullshit rule change stating that professional Ironman triathletes must be within 8% of the winner’s time to collect their prize money. This rule makes no sense other than to screw over other podium winners because Ironman is too cheap to guarantee them a purse and rewarding their excellence. Your placement should guarantee you some money if there’s a prize pool set aside for that place, regardless of how far behind the leader you are. Julie Dibens is a class act, and I hope other Ironman winners follow suit and take care of their fellow triathletes. A Blast from the Past A triathlon website recently took a look at an issue of Triathlete magazine from 1984 and laughed at some of the absurd recommendations and equipment being featured. I like the image of the dude trying to clean his bike off in the bath tub — apparently a hose was too forward-thinking in the mid-80’s. The dude with the sweet ‘stache perched in the thinker’s pose atop a Cannondale frame is pretty awesome too. “Hey Baby, What’s Your Age Group?” Jason came across this post called Tips for Dating Endurance Athletes, and while the list itself is a bit hard on the eyes, it has some amusing gems like “‘I find fulfillment in charitable work’ really means ‘If I am not racing, I am volunteering or cheering on my buddies, and I expect you to be there alongside me as I stand out in 90 degree weather for 8 hours handing out...