Last night when I was at track, my coach Teresa, with a big grin on her face, blurted out two big announcements. The first was that one of my teammates had gotten engaged, which I knew about thanks to Facebook (nonetheless, congratulations once again, Karissa!). Maybe now that Karissa will be busy with wedding planning, I can finally catch up to her swim speed. (I say this with 100% sarcasm because she is insanely fast in the water and I am dumbfounded by how she does it–I’m convinced she stows some fins and a small motor underneath a dock or something before races.) The second piece of...

For the third year in a row, I’m taking Teresa’s swim conditioning class. The first couple years I took the class, Teresa ran it solo. Class size varies from a few athletes total to about three per lane. When the class gets crowded, you could sometimes get away with less than perfect swim form if Teresa was on the other side of the pool analyzing your classmates. However, this year things have changed, making swim class much, much more difficult. Apparently, TN Multisports has gained in popularity enough to add another coach and two specialists to the team. Normally I’d applaud the...

Flash back to January 2008. Jason and I had just joined a track running group that my coworker, Christine, trained with every Tuesday evening. We were the awkward NKOTBs who were huffing it around the track while fit, wiry runners flew by us. Jason sported baggy Old Navy sweatpants that were at least one size too big and I bounded around on my toes like Pepe LePew. Oh, how far we’ve come since then…(not really.) Anyway, one day Christine mentioned to me that she had signed up for the New Balance Half Ironman in Victoria, BC. After much prodding and convincing, I decided to sign up for the...