Old Ladies Think I’m a Big Deal

Yeah, yeah, I hate swimming. It’s no secret. But in my constantly short-lived commitment to improve my swim times, I’ve intermittently tried hitting the pool more frequently. While slumming it in the ghetto YMCA pool that’s kept at a face-punchingly awful 86 degrees, I’ve realized something. I am freakin’ fast. Wait, let me clarify. I’m not “fast” in the traditional and logical sense, like “Oh, she can swim 1.2 miles in 25 minutes fast.” Hell no. Right now my measly swim goal for this season is to break 45 minutes at my next half Ironman race. What I mean by “I’m freakin’ fast” is that old ladies marvel at my mad swim skills. To the wrinkly, blue-haired women rockin’ the water wings and snorkels at the pool, I am Natalie muthafuckin’ Coughlin. It all started earlier this year when I was huffing and puffing my way through a stupid swim set, trudging back and forth in the pool. At the end of one set I stopped to rest, and the senior citizen who was sharing the lane with me and had been breast stroking slower than I was kick boarding said, “Are you in a master’s class?” When I said no, she beamed and exclaimed, “Well I think you just look great! So fast!” Confused, I narrowed my eyes, suspicious that this old woman was trolling me. Ultimately, though, I decided to respect my elders so I politely thanked her and continued with my workout. As the year progressed, however, I’d continue to get compliments from geriatric swimmers. I’d be doing my workout when two pale, varicosey legs dangling out of a skirted one-piece would plop into my lane, and the equivalent of Betty White with a swim cap and flippers would meekly ask me if she could share the lane with me even though she was “so much slower” than my blazing fast arms and pow-pow-power legs. Holy crap, I thought, maybe I am getting faster. Sure, it’s always some old lady who marvels at my mad swim skillz, but still, they’re pretty wise, right? My newfound confidence was shattered, however, when I did a swim workout in Colorado while I was in town for work. I was minding my own business and doing my workout when a gym employee made me shove over into a different lane because some stupid middle school swim team needed to practice. My irritation quickly dissolved into deep and profound shame as these little brats proceeded to hand my ass to me in the water set after set after set.  How could this be? How could these kids who can’t even get into a PG-13 movie by themselves be owning me so effortlessly? These old ladies are lying assholes. When it comes to speed, it’s all relative. To a pre-teen I’m slow as shit, but to the old lady snorkling next to me during my swim workout today, I’m “so fast!” and am merely a Costco-sized bag of Werther’s Originals away from being regarded as the most awesome human being to have ever lived. I may not be speedy in the traditional sense, but as long as I keep swimming in the nearly 90-degree pool alongside water aerobicizing septuagenarians, I’m a pretty big...
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You Can’t Cut Corners, Biggest Loser

I enjoy watching/making fun of/rooting for the chubby contestants from The Biggest Loser, but this show really knows how to piss off an athlete. In last night’s episode, previous contestant Tara (the girl with the weirdly spaced teeth who won more challenges than any other contestant in show history) returned to tow a car alongside the current season’s cast of shrinking folks. She mentioned a new charity she set up and then dropped the bomb that she would be competing in the Ironman World Championships in Kona this fall. I’m all for these folks feeling empowered and strong and getting into good shape, but fast-tracking Biggest Loser contestants into elite races is ridiculous. Just because they’re a quasi-celebrity doesn’t mean they should be able to bypass the stringent qualification requirements or shouldn’t have to throw their name into the lottery and hope, like thousands of other athletes do every year, that they get chosen. To me, letting a Biggest Loser contestant do Kona or “run” the Boston Marathon is a slap in the face to the hard working athletes who bust their butts to train and qualify for these races. I know the argument is that they’re inspiring people to get off the couch and get in shape, but the same point can be made by having them sign up for a regular Ironman event or marathon. The majority of these alumni can’t qualify for Boston or Kona. Hell, most fit people can’t qualify, yet NBC is telling us that all we have to do is become morbidly obese, get on a TV show and let a couple of melodramatic trainers scream at us while we struggle to do box jumps and lose weight, and then we can move to the front of the Kona or Boston line? Screw the 3:10 qualifying marathon time — all my boyfriend has to do to race Boston is gain 100 lbs and he’ll be invited to power walk it in a Biggest Loser t-shirt while tens of thousands of hard working, serious athletes run by him. The triathlons are even worse. The Biggest Loser recently invited some alumni back to do an Olympic distance triathlon and awarded the winning male and female each $25,000. Yep, $25,000. For an Olympic distance race. Do you know in which place you would have to finish at the Ironman World Championships to make as much as these stupid contestants made for finishing their crappy race? 2nd place, which pays out $30,000. Yeah, that’s right, the 2nd fastest Ironman triathlete in the world only made $5,000 more than a Biggest Loser contestant who wouldn’t even be able to win his or her age group in a typical Olympic distance triathlon. Former Biggest Loser winner Matt actually raced Kona in 2010, and guess how he did? He didn’t make the official cutoff and instead finished after 17 hours. With proper training and barring any physical or mechanical malfunctions, there is practically no reason you can’t finish an Ironman within the cutoff time. It’s a formidable distance, sure, but they give you an extremely generous window in which to finish. Matt wasn’t in good enough shape to do an Ironman, let alone the World Championships, plain and simple. Yet millions of viewers think, “Wow, Matt is an Ironman and a hardcore athlete because he competed in the World Championships!” Well, not really. He didn’t make the cutoff time. He cut corners to get there, and look what happened. I think Tara will do better than Matt — she seems like she’s in better shape and can actually finish Kona in under 17 hours, provided she puts in the training...
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