My boyfriend’s dad Jim (whom I guess is basically my father-in-law at this point seeing as how Jason and I have been dating longer than most marriages seem to last nowadays) is an amusing fellow. He has always been a fan of cycling and is a pretty strong cyclist, but over the last several years he’s gotten interested in triathlon too as Jas and I have raced more and more. Jim logs a bunch of time in the pool swimming and will often hit up back to back spin classes at the athletic club or ride with us, yet due to bad knees and ankles, he can’t really muster up a decent run, which is why despite our encouragement, he’ll likely never bite the bullet and sign up to do a triathlon. Despite his aches and pains, two years ago Jim wanted to try and get back into running so he signed up for the Seattle half marathon. His ankles acted up during the race and slowed him down considerably, and he hobble-jogged across the finish line at a painful lean. When we congratulated him on his accomplishment, he bemoaned the fact that not only did he not have a good run, he got beat by someone who brought special levels of humiliation: Jim: “I got passed by a guy juggling!” Jason: “What? You got beat by a joggler?” Jim: “Yeah! And he wasn’t even a good juggler! He kept dropping everything!” Well Jim, if you thought getting beat by a joggler was bad, imagine how demoralizing it would be to get beat by this guy at a sprint triathlon: Completing A Triathlon While Juggling – Watch More Funny Videos Yes, this dude completed a sprint triathlon while juggling the whole way, from the swim (a pretty impressive back-float method) to a one-handed juggle on the bike to a joggle all the way to the finish. I’m pretty sure if Jim signed up for a sprint triathlon and got beat by a juggling triathlete, he would just give up on life...

Welp, Jas and I have arrived in Hawaii for the 2012 Ironman Honu 70.3. Our flight was somewhat interesting as a woman in first class fell unconscious and a flight attendant asked if there was an EMT or doctor on board. Considering how often we fly, we were pretty surprised that we had never run into a “holy crap, there’s a mid-flight medical emergency” situation before. Thankfully, one of my teammates is a nurse and she tended to the woman along with an ER doctor who also happened to be on board. They diagnosed her as having low blood sugar and recommended she drink some fruit juice. Her response: “Can I have a Mai Tai?” Medical emergency be damned, this lady wanted to start her vacation! Okay, back to the title of the post. It’s no secret I hate swimming. I think it’s bullshit and bemoan the fact that the more time I spend in the water, the slower I seem to get. But damn if Teresa isn’t hell-bent on turning me into a swimmer one of these days. She scheduled a 30 minute swim in a bay and kept telling me how you can see fish and coral and all this other bullshit that is potentially scary (like fucking reef sharks, which some of my teammates had spotted before Jas and I flew in) and Mediocre Athlete-devouring. I walked onto the beach, saw the bay, and saw a little pond between the bay and the parking lot and half-joked whether I could just swim in that instead. (The answer was no.) The water was actually amazingly calm and a comfortable temperature. I got in with my SS peeps (that’s Slow and Steady for all you fast buttholes who aren’t down with the crappy swimmer lingo) and we took off for a striped buoy about 250 yards out. I swam over a bunch of sharp-looking coral and kept worrying I’d end up punching one and emerge with Bloodsport fists, but I managed to evade the rocks (they were farther down than they looked). We got to the buoy and cut over around some anchored boats, then looped back to where we started before heading back to the original buoy again. My swim felt surprisingly decent, and aside from getting bit under my right boob by some “what the the hell, why is this microscopic thing attacking me, it’s not fair to get beat up by something I can’t even see” sea louse or tiny urchin or Bullshit Aquatic Amoeba of Death, I emerged unscathed. No shark bites, no stingray barb through the heart, no Eel of Perpetual Pain or whatever. I was actually unimpressed with the aquatic life and didn’t see anything cool other than a couple small gray-looking fish. But whatever, I needed to get my swim workout in so at least Teresa succeeded in dragging me into the ocean. Then, abruptly, my slow posse ran into Mark and Jason, who popped up and excitedly started blurting out words that barely formed sentences as if they were a couple of seven-year olds who had just met Batman. Mark and Jason: “Omigodthere’satonofdolphinsouttheredidyouseethemyouhavetogoswimovertothemit’samazing!” Naturally, the SS crew lost its shit. DOLPHINS?! DID YOU SAY DOLPHINS?!!! THE FRIENDLIEST ANIMALS IN THE ENTIRE OCEAN??!! THE ONES THAT ALWAYS LOOK LIKE THEY’RE SMILING??!!! Few things will motivate me to swim longer than my workout entails, but a pod of dolphins swimming majestically through the ocean was enticing enough to get my slow ass to plod an extra couple hundred yards to catch a glimpse. As I swam, I felt as if I were traversing through a spooky fuckin’ forest on my way to...

Warning: This post is disgusting. You probably shouldn’t read it. I wrote it because while this whole ordeal was gross and embarrassing and contains more information than you would ever want to know about my nether region, it’s still kind of funny and interesting. And there’s some science involved, so maybe you could learn something. Something gross, but hey, it’s better than nothing, right? So I went to the Coeur d’Alene training camp, did a fever and cold-induced 80 mile bike ride, and came home with a Fergie-approved lovely lady lump in my nethers. It hurt like a mofo over the weekend but subsided into a “feels like a slight bruise” sensation. Unfortunately, despite the pain level decreasing, the size and hardness of this mass remained the same. I started to get concerned because I had three bike workouts on my schedule for this week and Honu was right around the corner, so I couldn’t afford to stay off the bike and wait for this thing to go away on its own. My “situation” was quite the topic of interest among my female teammates: [at our group run at Greenlake] Jill: “How are you feeling?” Me: “Much better! I think my cold is gone now.” Jill: “I mean…how are you feeling.” Me: “…oh, right. That thing. Yeah, it’s still there.” [two minutes later] Vicki: “Hey, Rebecca! How are things feeling?” Me, sighing: “Yeah, it’s still there.” By Wednesday the blob was still hanging around places it shouldn’t be, so I called the women’s health clinic at my go-to medical center to try and make an appointment. Receptionist: “So are you just wanting a routine checkup?” Me: “Well, I guess we could do a checkup, yeah, but I want to get this potential cyst looked at. It formed after a bike ride on Friday and I need to get it dealt with as soon as possible.” Receptionist: “Okay…” [clack clack clack clack clack] “…I have a June 6th appointment available. Will that work for you?” Me: Me: “Seriously, three weeks? Don’t you have anything sooner?” Receptionist: “I’ll have to look and call you back.” Annoyed, I tried a different clinic. The soonest they could get me in to see a doctor was Monday, so I tentatively made an appointment but kept calling around trying to find a better option. Clinic #3 receptionist: “How can I help you?” Me: “I was wondering if you had any open appointments for the gynecologist.” Receptionist: “Uhhhh…I don’t think we do that here.” Me: “Oh, okay.” Receptionist: “Let meeeeee cheeeeeck…..” [clack clack clack clack clack] “…yeah, we don’t have cardiologists here.” Me: “Not cardiologists, gynecologists.” Receptionist: “Oh, radiologists?” Me, shouting: “GYNECOLOGIST! WOMEN’S HEALTH!!” I glanced over at Jason, whose shoulders were shaking with laughter. I could only imagine my conversation with this deaf woman escalating to me screeching “VAG DOCTOR!! I’M HAVING COOCH PROBLEMS!! THERE’S A CYST NEAR MY POON!!!” Receptionist: “OHHHHHHHHHHH…..let me give you the number to our women’s health clinic.” Good grief. I called the clinic she referred me to and spoke with a fourth receptionist. Clinic #4 receptionist: “How may I help you?” Me: “I need to make an appointment to see a gynecologist. First available, if possible.” Receptionist: “Okay, what’s the reason for the visit?” Me, as if reciting from a script because I’ve explained this roughly 1,000 times already: “I’m training for a race and I did an 80 mile bike ride over the weekend and I developed a hard lump near my pubic bone and my friend who’s a nurse said it’s probably a cyst and told me to have a doctor check it out to make sure it’s...

This past weekend Jas and I trekked to Coeur d’Alene, Idaho to train on the Ironman Coeur d’Alene course with some teammates before the big race next month. Jason will be racing but my big dance isn’t until Canada at the end of August, but I thought I’d be an overachiever and go to the training camp anyway, figuring it would help me for my race. The weekend didn’t go quite as planned and I ended up getting slammed with the three c’s: a cold, crotch issues, and a new batch of chest chafing. Sicky-Ki-Yay, Motherf*cker A crappy cold has been working its way through my team the past couple weeks, so it was only a matter of time before the germs made their way to me. At least three of the teammates who I had swum with and met for dinner last week ended up getting sick, and Coach Teresa was battling the yuck all week, too. So naturally, as Jas and I were driving across Washington on Thursday heading to glorious Idaho, I started to feel rundown and kind of blergh. By the time we checked into the hotel and met Mark and Teresa for dinner, my head was aching and I was battling Lumpy Throat Syndrome. The next morning, I sucked it up, chowed down on off-brand daytime cold medicine, and did the group swim at a nearby pool (swimming in the lake was a no-go considering temps were hovering at a nope-inducing 46 degrees), then suited up for a long bike ride. The first part of the Ironman bike course is kind of nice, with some slight, steady climbs along the lake before turning around and heading back into town. After about an hour, however, the course dumps you onto the highway where you get to bike out 20 miles before returning to town and doing the entire loop all over again. You spend 80 of the 112 miles on the highway, which is pretty sucky because it’s a boring, long, lonely, and mentally challenging stretch. I wasn’t exactly thrilled about riding alongside a rumble strip while semis careened past me as I dodged roadkill and random bits of debris, but if I had signed up for CdA I could probably suck it up on race day, although training on the highway was somewhat grueling. After I completed loop 1, I was starting to feel kind of crummy. The day was sunny and warm, but I was feeling too warm and started wondering if I was battling a low-grade fever–I’m used to sweating and sniffling during bike workouts, but this flop sweat, snot factory, and throbbing headache felt more cold-induced. I ran into Teresa, who went into Mom Mode when I told her I wasn’t feeling well and made me ride back to the hotel and rest. I felt kind of chumpy for only busting out 80 miles instead of riding the entire 112 and for skipping the brick run, but after I showered and spent the next two hours sneezing and blowing my nose, I figured I made the right decision. My evening was spent curled up in a chair in self-mandated quarantine watching re-runs of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia and wheezing while my teammates went out to dinner. The next morning I skipped the second group ride but thought I’d give the team run a try, figuring that if I had to choose one of the workouts to do, I’d opt for the run instead of the bike because I could bail more easily if I still felt crummy. I still felt a bit feverish leading up to the run but felt surprisingly...

For much of my triathlon “career” (stop laughing) I’ve used BASE Performance products. Founded a few years ago by Chris Lieto, the company offers products specifically designed for optimum athlete performance and recovery. My favorite product by far is the recovery activator, which are supplements you can take after grueling workouts to aid your body a bit with recovery. I’ve also used their salt (I actually cook with it), their amino mix, and their multivitamins but the recovery pills are what steer me into junkie mode. Since I’ve been a fan of the company shortly after it was founded, I thought I’d ping someone at BASE for a little interview. Eventually Paul Lieto, Chris’s brother who works for Base, got tired of my incessant pestering and agreed to answer some of the dumb questions I threw his way. Enjoy! Mediocre Athlete: Can you share the super awesome comic book-style origin story behind BASE Nutrition? Who founded it and what was their purpose behind forming the company–did they see a void in the athlete nutrition industry that wanted to fill or a problem that needed solving? Paul Lieto: BASE Performance was founded by professional triathlete Chris Lieto. He did see a void in his nutrition plan. There were several companies providing good nutritional products (like CytoSport, PowerBar, Clif, etc). But he was looking for some additional supplementation to improve his recovery specifically. Chris worked with his physicians to find and formulate the products we offer. He first utilized the products when racing the Tour of Utah, a cycling stage race. He immediately noticed the improvements in his recovery as he felt stronger from stage to stage rather than slowly breaking down over the tour. He debated for some time whether to bring the products to the public, giving his competitors a chance to utilize them, but decided it was for the greater good to help other professionals and age groupers achieve their fitness and endurance goals. MA: What makes BASE Nutrition’s products great for athletes? Paul: In a nutshell, BASE Performance develops all-natural supplements that help athletes train harder, recovery quicker, and therefore race faster. Endurance training is stressful on the body (and mind). Our products primarily focus on recovery and building a base foundation of health. Our Amino helps minimize muscle breakdown during workouts while helping build lean muscle post. The Recovery Activator helps clear toxins and facilitate glycogen absorption after a workout. Our Vitamins have higher dosages of the essentials to help defend against the excess free radical production associated with strenuous aerobic exercise. And our Electrolyte Salts are not just sodium chloride tablets; they actually have all 84 essential minerals needed for proper energy balance, including calcium, magnesium, and potassium. It’s in a fine grain form so we recommend athletes not only use in their sports drink mix, but also replace their normal table salt with BASE salt. To become a stronger, faster athlete you need to put in the hard, focused workouts. We develop the supplements that help you attack your tough workouts and recovery quicker so you can do it again the following day. It’s the building of continual focused workouts that will make athletes faster and why we see so many PR’s from our customers. MA: How many employees does BASE have? Paul: Just Chris and I right now as partners in BASE Performance. We work with other small businesses to help fulfill orders and manage some of the stuff I’m not good at, like balancing the books. MA: What is your role within the company (other than putting up with pestering questions from mediocre athletes like myself)? Paul: Currently my role is day to...