My swim, much like 'The Curious Case of Benjamin Button,' is disappointing and runs way too long.

Take today’s workout for example. Teresa persuaded me to do the “postal swim,” which is an hour-long time trial. The rule is simple: see how far you can swim in 60 minutes. She pestered me via email and asked if I was going to sign up, and I sighed and responded with, “I don’t really want to do it, but I will if you think it’ll be good for me.” By the time I stopped dragging my feet and committed to doing the workout, there were only a couple slots left. Teresa cheerfully jammed me into the first of three waves. Wave #1 started at 7 am. On a Sunday. FML.

As if getting up at the ass crack of dawn on a Sunday morning for a bullshit swim workout wasn’t bad enough, I scanned the list of folks who were swimming in Wave #1 and realized that I was woefully outpaced among my fellow teammates. All of the fast assholes on my team were swimming at 7 am. I needed to be in Wave #3, which started at 9:30…or Teresa needed to make a separate “slowest of the slow” wave that started at noon and consisted of me and a no armed, one legged drifter named Hobo Joe.

Also making the swim worse was the fact that I was out of town this past week for work, so my weekend workouts were especially heavy duty to make up for my travel time. I spent the weekdays in Denver before flying home and forcing myself to do a swim workout on Friday. My swim wasn’t great, which gave me a glimmer of hope that, by the Law of Transitive Beccas, my Sunday swim would be better. On Saturday I had a “Welcome back to Ironman training you lazy bastard” workout that consisted of 3×1 hour bike intervals with a 15 minute brick run after each set. By the end of my 3:45 workout, I was exhausted, my legs were aching, and I was dreading the early morning swim that would end my weekend.

This morning I woke up at a soul-crushingly early 5:30 am and puttered around as nervous as I would be if it were an actual race. I was irrationally anxious and agonized over what to eat for breakfast. I even sucked down a cup of coffee, something I only do on race mornings. Jason and I hopped into the car (he didn’t want to do the postal swim either, but I nagged him into Band of Brothers-ing it with me) and drove over to Mercer Island. It was stupid and dark outside–as in “dark enough that I should still be in bed instead of driving to a turdtastic swim workout.” The island has no streetlights and the pool center was dark too, resulting in a supremely paranoid left turn into the parking lot since I was worried about missing the driveway and careening down an embankment (which, admittedly, still would have been better than swimming nonstop for an hour).

We entered the facility and made our way down to the pool. It was actually a 25 meter pool, so it was a smidge longer than the typical 25-yarder I was used to. I hopped in and busted out a half-ass 100 meter warm up, then we all began the time trial. My lane partner named Jeanne immediately began kicking my ass, lapping me like I was treading water and busting out flip turns like a boss. I sighed and puttered along, keeping a steady pace.

It was a bit tedious and difficult to concentrate on perfect form (which I don’t have, anyway) for an entire hour, so I let my mind wander towards the following:

• The nasty band-aid that was floating beneath me for about 20 minutes (eventually it made its way over to the lane next to me and kept Derek and Karissa company).
• How much phlegm I accumulated the longer I swim. At around the 30 minute mark I had a string of drool hanging from my mouth for about 100 meters before it finally broke off and presumably floated over to hang out with the band-aid in the Corner of Gross.
• Getting half-drowned every 10 minutes whenever Derek and I would briefly end up side by side (I say “briefly” because that bastard is an astoundingly fast swimmer) and his massive, manly wake would push into me and make me gurgle and partially choke on chlorine, band-aid juice, and errant loogies.

By the time the clock finally ticked down to its last seconds, I was halfway done with a length and finished at the deck end of the pool at around 1:00:25. I looked up and saw that the crowd had grown from about five teammates who were counting everyone’s laps to around 30 people who were waiting for their wave to start. The sudden audience made me feel a bit sheepish in a “Oh hey guys, how long have you been standing there? I was just taking ‘er easy for that last 10 minutes…oh, you’ve been here for 20? I meant 20. I did a 20 minute cooldown. I’m not normally this slow…” sort of way.

I hopped out of the pool, and Addy, my lap counter, looked up from his seat to give me my distance.

Addy: “2325.”

Me: “What?! I was between 25 and 50 when time ran out!”

Addy, helpfully: “Well, I wrote down ‘2325+.’”

Me, sulking: “Well I’m going to round up to 2350.”

Addy, rolling his eyes: “Whatever.”

Me, embarrassed: “…I need all the distance I can get.”

Teresa told me to shoot for 2400-2600 and Jason the Overbearing Boyfriend said I could do 2800. I did neither of those. In fact, if you calculate my pace for a half and full Ironman distance, I swam slower today than last year’s Rev 3 swim time and my Ironman Canada swim time. How nice to see that my swim times are getting progressively worse the longer I do this sport. I guess you could blame my sluggishness on the fact that my legs were dead from the previous day’s workout, but Jason had a 5 hour interval workout and he busted out a great swim time, so I can’t even really make that excuse. I guess I just suck, plain and simple.

I’m starting to get desperate here–at this point I’m actually entertaining the notion of joining a master’s swim class or two. Sure, I’ll get humiliated a couple nights a week, but at least I’ll have someone who can keep an eye on my swim form and yell at me whenever I do something wrong (which would be every 15 seconds). I’ve been better about hitting my swim workouts lately but I’m still not seeing consistent gains. How much do I need to be swimming each week to improve? And will this improvement be anything substantial, or will I basically negate any gains I make this August at IMC if I end up needing to take a three minute bathroom break in T2? Do I truly have the potential to get substantially better at swimming, or will I always be weak at it no matter how hard I work? I’m not whining here, just genuinely clueless about what it takes to improve my swimming. Maybe I need to harvest Michael Phelps’ tears or something…

Unsurprisingly, this mediocre athlete don’t do flip turns. I very obviously lack the coordination and skill to pull off a graceful somersault in the water and push off the wall in one fluid motion. Once I went to a flip turn clinic that Teresa was teaching at the Seattle Athletic Club, and not only did I burn out my sinuses from the military-grade chlorine that flooded my nasal passages every time I contorted my body underwater (Teresa’s shouts to “Tuck your chin!” did not help, as apparently I am incapable of scrunching my head in that manner), I would more often than not attempt to flip at the end of the lane and end up in the one next to me, having somehow maneuvered myself underneath the lane divider and crookedly emerging in some other swimmer’s personal space. “Just practice doing flip turns during your warm ups and cool downs!”, Teresa would tell me. Uh yeah, if I can’t even stay in my lane during a mostly empty swim clinic, I can’t imagine a pool full of lap swimmers would appreciate my flailing appendages slapping into them while I repeatedly apologize and insist to their bruised faces that practice makes perfect.

So yeah, flip turns aren’t for me. It’s not a big deal–I’m slow and crappy enough as it is, so adding a flip turn into the mix isn’t going to be the deciding factor in me suddenly becoming as fast as Dara Torres. When I get to the wall I just turn around and push off, so it’s not like I’m taking a five minute break at each end. I’ve accepted the fact that flip turns and I will never have a future together in a pool with a yard and a white picket fence and 2.5 kiddie pools, and that’s okay.

Or so I thought. Here T was trying to force flip turns on me once again. She’d have us swim for a bit and then do something dumb like somersault in the middle of the pool. Fortunately, she exempted those of us who “got dizzy” when trying flip turns, so I feigned vertigo and opted just to swim a couple laps instead. The next step was to have people swim to the end of a lane and attempt a flip turn, but I opted to splash around in the middle of the pool and daydream about the day when the swim portion of a triathlon would be replaced with something more practical like light stretching or cookie eating.

After the flip turn nonsense, as the workout came to an end I thought I was in the clear. And then T did something especially dastardly: she combined my two most loathed swim activities, flip turns and relays. Teresa is a fan of concluding the swim classes with some relay bullshit, which I hate because it makes me irrationally stressed. She breaks us into groups and gives us some dumb stuff to do, like everyone has to do 50 yards of drills or some swim stroke I never practice and totally suck at. This part of the workout is always terrible because it’s at the end, so I’m already exhausted and can barely swim any more, and because I’m slow as shit so I always feel like I’m letting my team down (the last two times I did a swim relay with a group, my team came in last).

So now we were tasked with swimming 50 yards starting from the middle of the pool, with one end being a flip turn and the other end being a push off. My group consisted of Fast Guy, Fast Guy, Fast Guy, and me. I refused to be the anchor because I didn’t want to totally ruin whatever lead we had going in, so they stuck me in the third position. When it was my turn to go, I swam to the wall and skipped the whole “flip turn” part, figuring my faux-dizziness excuse would exempt me. I finished my leg and my last teammate took off to finish. When he was done we realized we were in first place. Hooray! Wahoo! We’re #1!

And then Teresa disqualified us because I didn’t do a flip turn. What?! But…vertigo! Dizziness! Or maybe just an unwillingness to do them because they hurt my sinuses and I suck at them and they’re stupid! Whatever. Flip turns are overrated–it’s not like skipping the turn gave me a 30 second lead or anything. Sorry I let you down, guys. I was the turd in the punchbowl.

We did another relay to end the workout, then called it a day. And so Saturday was Teresa’s yearly attempt to get me to work on flip turns. Teresa, in case you’re thinking about trying to teach them to me again, here’s some advice from resident Mean Girl Regina George:

"Flip turns" and "fetch": both failed experiments.

While I have no food allergies, I’m allergic to a ton of pollens and mildews and grasses and some pet dander (cat being the worst). I get two shots, one for cat dander and one that’s a cocktail of trees, grasses, dust mites and mildew. Right now I’m in “maintenance” mode for the cat shot, meaning I only get that shot once a month. I’m still building up the other shot though so I receive that once a week.

Yesterday I went to the medical center to receive my weekly injection. The nurse was someone I hadn’t seen before and I was less than impressed with her needlework. After a more-uncomfortable-than-usual shot, I texted Jas:

Stupid new nurse pulled the needle out at an angle. Blood ensued. Come on, junkies take more care than this.

Whenever I get a shot I have to wait around for 30 minutes afterwards to make sure I don’t have a systemic reaction from the allergens that were injected, so I wiped the blood from my arm and waited until my time was up, not knowing that the botched shot would serve as ominous foreshadowing to how the rest of my day would go.

As I was driving home, I started to feel a pain in the middle of my chest. Not like a heart attack-type pain, but like a really bad bout of acid reflux or like there was a wad of something stuck in my esophagus. By the time I got home the pain would sharply flare up every few minutes and course from the middle of my chest up to my throat. I told Jas about my discomfort and he gave me a “WTF call the doctor” look. The ensuing conversation went as follows:

Receptionist (in a bored, flat voice): “Medical Specialties.”

Me: “Hi, I just came in for an allergy shot and I think I’m having an adverse reaction.”

Receptionist (slightly less bored now): “Uh, okay, what’s your name?”

Me: “Rebecca Kelley. K-E-L-L-E-Y.”

Receptionist: “One moment.”

Abrupt silence.

Then:

Voice: “REBECCA IT’S JEAN CALL 911!”

Jean is one of the head nurses who typically administers my shots. She is very sweet and exceptionally cautious, as I came to find out from our phone call.

Me: “Whuh–”

Jean: “CALL 911 AND TELL THEM YOU’RE HAVING A SYSTEMIC REACTION! …then call us and schedule a follow up appointment, mkay?”

Me: “Uh, my boyfriend is right here, can’t he just drive me to the–”

Jean: “NO, IT COULD ESCALATE SO YOU NEED TO CALL 911!”

Me: “Well where should I go, should I go back to the UW Medical Center?”

Jean: “Whereever’sclosestI’mhangingupnowcall911bye.”

I hung up the phone and looked at Jason to relay the conversation, but considering that Jean was shouting at me in a panicked Jack Bauer state, he had heard everything and the look on his face went from “WTF” to “Jesus Christ WTF was that?!!!”

Me: “Screw it, I’m not calling an ambulance to take me half a mile. Jason, can you drive me to Swedish?”

We headed to the hospital. The pain in my chest continued intermittently and I was feeling a bit feverish. I wasn’t having problems breathing or swallowing but the pain kept getting more intense. When we got to the ER, I checked in and answered a barrage of questions from a nurse who kept trying to trick me into admitting I was some sort of misfit:

Nurse: “Do you smoke?”

Me: “No.”

Nurse: “Chewing tobacco?”

Me: “No.”

Nurse: “Alcohol?”

Me: “Uh, occasionally.”

Nurse: “Recreational drugs?”

Me: “No.”

Nurse: “Smoke?”

Me: “What? Still no.” As if she’d catch me in a lie and I’d be like, “Yes, I smoke ALL the cigarettes…oops, I mean no, I don’t smoke,” and she’d jump out of her chair and exclaim, “A-HA! I got you, you smoking fuck!”

After I got checked in and my blood pressure and temperature were taken, a nurse (who I shall refer to as “First Best Nurse”) took me to a room.

First Best Nurse: “So what happened?”

I explained that I had gotten an allergy shot and was having a reaction.

First Best Nurse: “What’s your level of pain on a scale of 0-10?”

I never know how to answer that because pain is so subjective. My 4 could be someone else’s 9 and some hardcore dude’s -7.

Me: “Uh, it’s not pants-crappingly bad, just kind of shitty.”

He laughed, then started to clean the crook of my right arm.

First Best Nurse: “They’re going to administer an IV to counteract your reaction. I’m going to put a line in and draw some blood…they’re probably not going to do anything with it but now’s the time to draw it.”

Awesome, I got to have five vials of blood drawn in the off chance that they’d need some of it for testing, cloning, demonic sacrifice, or to frame me for a crime. Yaay.

First Best Nurse hooked me up to a heart monitor and then was all “Peace out bitches, I’m out. Rico’s your nurse now” and left. (Okay, he didn’t exactly put it in those terms but he did leave.)

I sat there for a long while, the beeps of the heart monitor keeping me company. It kept annoyingly alerting that my heart rate was low (it hovered between 48-51), and after a while I wanted to punch through the screen and shout “I’m not dying I just work out a lot and have a low resting heart raaaaaate!” At one point the machine went super apeshit when my heart rate got down to 37. I expected nurses to rush in all Code Blue style with defibrillators in their hands but nobody appeared, which made me wonder what purpose the alerts even served if they didn’t actually alert anyone. The super loud alarm did scare me into producing a higher heart rate and the machine went from going crazy to returning to the annoying “Hey, your heart rate is low what’s up with that” beeps.

While I waited, Nurse Rico came in.

Nurse Rico: “So what happened?”

Me: “Uh…”

Seriously, was I going to have to give the backstory to every person who came into the room? What happened to patient charts and knowing about a situation beforehand?

I got him caught up on Chest Tightness 2011 and he took my blood pressure, entered some stuff into the computer and left. After more waiting a woman came in who I’ll refer to as Paperwork Patty.

Paperwork Patty: “Hi, I’m just here to enter some information so we can process some paperwork.”

Me: “Okay.”

Paperwork Patty: “So what happened?”

God damnit.

I summarized the ordeal again and she asked me for emergency contact information, religious preferences, and some other inane information.

Me: “Do you know when the doctor will be in? And what’s with this heart monitor making so much noise?”

Paperwork Patty: “Uh, I…don’t know. I’m not a nurse, I’ll get someone for you.”

By this time Jason was able to make his way back to my room and kept me company while we waited an eon for the doctor to arrive. She finally graced me with her presence and shall now be referred to as Dr. Shitty Bedside Manner.

Dr. Shitty Bedside Manner: “Hi there! So you’re having an adverse reaction to an allergy shot?”

Ugh, finally someone who knows why I was admitted.

Me: “Yeah.”

Dr. Shitty Bedside Manner: “Ooh, I can see that the right side of your face is swollen.”

Me: “It is?” I touched my face. “I…don’t think so.”

Dr. Shitty Bedside Manner: “Really?” She squinted at my face. I turned to Jas and he shrugged.

Me: “It doesn’t feel swollen…”

Dr. Shitty Bedside Manner: “Look at me.” She inspected my face and then frowned. “Well, some people have asymmetrical faces, maybe your right side is just naturally puffier.”

My reaction:

Seriously?

Here I was thinking that I’d lost weight and was looking kind of good lately and some shitty doctor takes it upon herself to tell me that half of my face is inherently fat. Awesome.

Dr. SBM: “Okay, here’s what we’re gonna do…”

Ah, finally, the remedy. I was gonna get a shot of adrenaline or something, right? We’d recreate that scene from Pulp Fiction and it’d be all hardcore and shit.

"I gotta stab her three times?"

Dr. SBM: “We’re going to give you a dose of Benadryl and then we’ll keep an eye on you for observation.”

Me: “Wait, what?” Benadryl? Benadryl?! Nurse Jean freaked the fuck out on the phone and told me to dial 911 so I could take a dose of Benadryl?

My disappointment was akin to this:

"Be sure...to drink...your...ovaltine?"

Me: “Is it different that the stuff you buy over the counter?” Throw me a bone, doc, and tell me that it’s at least some hospital-grade industrial strength Benadryl that’s used to wipe out allergies in rhinos or something.

Dr. SBM: “Nope, it’s the same stuff you can buy at the grocery store!”

Fuck my life.

And, to add insult to injury:

Dr. SBM: “We can even give you a children’s liquid dose in case you have trouble swallowing pills.”

Me:

“Uh no, the pills are fine.” Benadryl was bad enough, but going to the ER for a dose of Children’s Benadryl? I might as well just give up on life.

Dr. SBM: Okay then, I’ll order that up for you–hey, you’ve already got a line started.”

I looked down at the line taped to the inside of my arm.

Me: “Yeah, one of the nurses drew blood and said I would be getting an IV.” (I never got one.)

Dr. SBM: “Oh! Well then, we can administer the Benadryl directly. Don’t want to waste that line!” She left the room. At least I was getting a form of Benadryl that’s not available at pharmacies. It was the barely silver lining in this shitfest of a day.

Jason popped out to call his parents and give them an update on my medical situation and Nurse #3 stepped in to take vitals.

Nurse #3: “So what happened?”

FOR FUCK’S SAKE.

Me: “Allergic reaction.”

Nurse #3: “What are you allergic to?”

Me: “Uh, dust mites, trees, pollens, grass, mildew…nothing exciting, I’m afraid.”

Nurse #3: “…oh.” He seemed a bit confused, but whatever.

He typed some information into the computer and then started to wrap the blood pressure cuff around my left arm before he noticed the swollen and puffy area where my allergy shot had been administered earlier in the day.

Me: “That’s where I got the allergy shot.”

Nurse #3: “Ohhhhh, the reaction is from a shot!”

Me: “Wha–yes! What’d you think, I was belly sliding through a park or something?” That explained the funny look on his face–he thought I rushed myself to the ER after barrel rolling through the Arboretum and feeling itchy. At this point I was getting tired of nurses and wanted out of this damn place.

He left and returned with a shot of liquid Benadryl, which he then mainlined into my arm.

Nurse #3: “This will probably take effect in about five minutes or so.”

I felt the effects immediately. (Fat Rebecca would have needed the full five minutes.) Drowsiness kicked in and I started to feel a little cloudy and cottonmouthed. Jason hung out with me for an eternity while I was kept for observation, and I was getting tired and cranky and just wanted to go home. It was a waste of a trip and I was fearful of what the hospital bill would total and what little my “Greatest Country in the World Except For This Fucked Up Health Care System” insurance would cover.

A fourth nurse (a brusque, large woman) removed my line in a rough and terrifying manner, then scooped up all five vials of my blood and threw them away. I was a bit sad to see my blood go to waste. Jason joked that I should have snatched them from her, cracked them open and drank them all, exclaiming, “They’re all mine! MY BLOOOOODDDD!!” I opted not to and instead watched her chuck my precious liquids in the disposal bin.

Finally, after waiting around forever I was cleared to go. I spent about 2 1/2 to 3 hours at the hospital and emerged pumped full of Benadryl and feeling like the whole thing was a huge waste. If I had known some freaking Benadryl would have done the trick, I wouldn’t have spent the rest of my afternoon meeting every nurse who works at Swedish and having a doctor tell me my face is fat.

The rest of my evening was spent in a semi-drowsy, puffy armed state eating pizza and watching Breaking Bad. I’m currently taking bets on how much the hospital bill will be. Whatever the total, last night I took the most expensive dose of Benadryl ever.

“Not by a long shot!” my chipper coach Teresa most likely exclaimed as she loaded up my workouts with classes and utter bullshit. For example, here are just the classes and group workouts I’ve got scheduled for this week:

Monday: dryland strength class (It sucked; I was tired and Bridget made us do burpees with a biceps curl, one of the poopiest circuit workouts along with triceps pushups, which she also made us do. I hate Bridget.)

Tuesday: track (in which I get to do a speed test which basically involves running as hard as you can for 30 minutes so Teresa can assign me new heart rate zones. FML.)

Wednesday: dryland strength, cycling class

Friday: swim class

Saturday: group run

Sunday: cycling class, swim class

That’s not even counting the additional swims (two) bike workout (one), core workouts (two), and runs (one) I’ve got this week. Tell my wife and kids (meaning “Jason” and “pie”) that I love them, because this girl is going to be living and breathing fitness for the next 10 months.

I had a speed run workout scheduled, so Jas and I headed to the Greenlake track on our lunch break to bust it out. The plan was to do a 20 minute warm up, then two miles all out with a five minute recovery, then 4×100 at my previous all out pace with a three minute recovery, then a 10 minute cool down. Total workout time: 1 hour. I started my warm up then began my hard effort. It sucked. Bad. My stomach was really sour and I felt like I didn’t have any speed. I stopped after one mile, figuring I’d do my recovery and then I could do another hard mile. I started my recovery time and the sour stomach went into overdrive. My easy set quickly incorporated some “awkwardly mosey over to the portapotty and unleash the fury” time (at least there were portapotties nearby — I wasn’t about to fail my #1 goal).

When my stomach quieted down, I left the portapotty and dejectedly made my way back to the track. Okay, so my two mile hard effort was kind of a bust, but at least I could do my 4×100 sets, right? I started one and had a decent lap time, then did a recovery lap. During my second lap the stomach acted up again, and once again my recovery lap included a sprint to the bathroom where I had to do the walk of shame past the same tennis players who I had just passed five minutes ago. I felt like waving and announcing, “Yes, yes, it’s me again. Yes, clearly I’m having some sort of bowel issue. Thank you for noticing. Yes, I have seen Anna Kournikova on The Biggest Loser. Uh, no, I don’t really like her more than Jillian. I mean, she kind of sucks and she’s got the crappiest team, so…you know what, speaking of ‘crappiest,’ I really gotta go. Again.”

After Wave of Number Two #2 came and went, I managed to bust out a super sad cool down mile, figuring that the workout was a complete bust considering my guts weren’t letting me run hard. Instead of 7-7.5 miles, I managed a fairly sad five. We drove home and I had some soup and some tea to try and quiet things down, then I headed to the allergist to get my weekly shot.

I needed to get a swim workout in but wasn’t sure I’d make the swim time at our gym, so later that evening after my shot I headed over to Medgar Evers to drop in on their lap swim time. When I got there, the employee recharged my parks & rec card and was about to scan it when I looked over at the pool and noticed an unusually large amount of pre-teens occupying the lanes.

Me: “Uh, is lap swim going on right now?”

Employee: “No, it’s a youth swim clinic.”

Me: “Oh…how long does that go for?”

Employee: “From now until 6:30.” Damn it all!

Me: “Does lap swim start after that?”

Employee: “Yeah, from 6:30 to 7:00.”

Oh, what the hell. 30 minutes for lap swim? Maybe the average swimmer could do my workout in that time, but Rebecca the Floating Turd was going to need about 50 to bust this out. No swimming for me.

I headed back home and thought, “Okay, the run didn’t go well, the swim didn’t happen, but I have an hour long bike workout scheduled tomorrow that I could do today” (I had been shuffling around workouts this week since Jason and I are traveling to Chicago this weekend). Jason pulled out my bike for me and I went to pump up my tires. I finished pumping up the front one, and when I removed the pump from the valve stem, it imploded into itself and my tire immediately went flat. FUCKKKKKKKKKK. Now I’ve got the saddest flat tire imaginable — an indoor trainer ride flat. Who gets these? Becca gets these.

I sighed and replaced the flat tube. By this point I was tired and in total “Fuck it” mode, so I did a pretty lazy spin while watching Teen Mom recordings from my DVR while Jason simultaneously laughed at and felt bad for me for having a terrible, horrible, no good very bad day. I ended up laughing it off with him — I mean, when three workouts go horribly awry, you gotta just roll with the punches, right? Thankfully, most of my workouts lately have gone relatively well coming off Injuryfest 2011, so I’ll take a shitty workout or two…just as long as this doesn’t become a regular thing.

My half-assitude lasted me through the weekend until I figured it was time to actually do some semblance of research and see who I could ride with. I had never done the Kirkland ride before (it’s put on by the city every year to raise money to help homelessness), so I asked Jason if he’d sign up with me. He gave me a “Pshaw hell nah, I’m tapering for Boise.” His dad, on the other hand, was interested in doing the ride so at least I’d have one cycling buddy for the day.

In keeping with my “total lack of research” theme for this ride, I woke up early Monday morning, got my gear together, did a quick glance at the 7 Hills website to get the address of the starting point, and took off. I met Jim, Jason’s dad, at the park where the ride took off from at 7 am and begrudgingly coughed up $55 for the registration fee. (A cost that I think is too expensive, especially considering that the course is still open to car traffic and we’re really only paying for a couple of aid stations. I reminded myself it was for a good cause and remembered to take more fuel gels than I needed at each food stop to make up for the dent in my wallet.)

The ride started out pretty decent, and the climbs were pretty good but nothing that was pants-crappingly difficult. Unfortunately, I found out pretty quickly that it’s not the best idea to do the ride on a time trial bike — there are enough climbs that having a road bike would be more beneficial, plus the descents are often winding/zig-zaggy and there aren’t that many flat/fast stretches to get into aero. I ended up being that doosher trying to look all bad-ass on my TT when a road bike was way more appropriate (at least I didn’t have race wheels *coughBrentcough*).

Jason’s dad had warned me ahead of time that the Winery Hill climb was the worst, and he had also cautioned me to be in the proper gearing as soon as we turned onto it. He wasn’t lying — as soon as you take a right onto that road, you run directly into the start of the hill. If you’re not in the correct gear when you hit it, you’re pretty screwed. The climb itself is shorter than the other hills on the ride, but it’s a steep fucker. My rear shifter was pointed towards the sky and I was cranking down on my pedals so hard, I nearly keeled over a couple times (I do not know how those professional cyclists wobble back and forth on their bikes so aggressively). When I got to the top, I was greeted by a woman sitting in a lawn chair and clapping, and once I made my way out of the neighborhood, a bag piper played the one token bagpipe song in existence.

According to the map, the winery hill was #6 out of #7 total, so I’d have a nice, good stretch before running into the final climb…or so I thought. We’d ride for a bit, and then we’d come across another freaking hill that wasn’t marked like the other ones we had climbed. I thought, “There’s no way they don’t consider these to be hills, so why the hell aren’t these marked and how come they don’t count?”  I grew more and more disgruntled with each ascent, cursing the city of Kirkland and my go-to scapegoat, Teresa, for scheduling this ride for me.

When we got to the second aid station, I brought up the fact that we’d clearly done more than seven hills. Someone heard me and said, “Oh yeah, the 7 Hills is if you do the 40 mile ride. Since we’re doing the metric century, we climb 11 hills.” What?! That’s over 50% more hills! Granted, if I had checked the ride’s website, I would have known that the metric century course is a lot hillier than the standard 7 Hills course, but I didn’t do that because I was half-awake when I left that morning (and a groggy Bec ain’t nuthing ta fuck wit). Thankfully, we were 15 miles and one last climb away from the finish.

After we finally rolled back into Marina Park, I checked my bike computer and saw that I averaged a glorious 14.4 mph — that’s what happens when you do 11 climbs over 60 miles and are packed so tightly amongst other cyclists, you can’t get a whole lot of speed or get into aero. I sure felt speedy. Jason’s dad gave me a dopey hug and thanked me for riding with him. We decided to grab lunch, so I headed over to my car to change into some less-yucky clothes and to lock my bike.

As I ghetto-cleaned up next to my car, I noticed a car waiting behind me out of the corner of my eye. I didn’t think much of it since I figured he was waiting for cyclists and pedestrians to cross the street so he could leave the park. After a while though, he stayed put and I realized he was waiting for my parking spot because the park was full. Since I was only dropping stuff off at my car and wasn’t actually leaving yet, I walked over to him and told him exactly that. He sneered and retorted, “You could have told me sooner, I’ve been waiting for ten minutes” and then drove off. And that’s why I hate assholes who try to poach your spot instead of looking around for something that’s available.

Jason’s dad and I grabbed lunch. Our conversation went something like this:

(before lunch) Jim: “Yeah, I think I could have gone 30 extra miles and done the century ride.”

(after lunch) Jim: “I’m glad I didn’t sign up for the century ride.”

When I got home, I unpacked my stuff and pulled up Training Peaks to log my workout. I noticed that Teresa had updated my workouts for the coming week, but what immediately caught my eye was that she had changed my 7 Hills of Kirkland ride to a day off. My reaction was basically this:

I updated my workout with some choice colorful language, and Teresa called me back within five minutes (because a workout update is like the Bat Signal to her), exclaiming, “You told me you weren’t going to do the ride!” I responded, “I said I’d maybe do it!” This back and forth continued for quite some time before she said, “Well, I’m happy you did it! Aren’t you happy you did it?” I didn’t have the heart to tell her no, I’m not happy I did it because I could have slept in and played video games and eaten a huge breakfast scramble instead, so instead I just sighed and said, “Yeah, it was fine.”

Overall I felt the ride is alright except for a few things:

• It’s too expensive (I know it’s a charity ride, but still)
• I should have used my road bike
• They should mark all of the goddamn hills, not just the titular “7″
• They should space out the aid stations better (the first one comes after an hour and the second one comes towards the end)

I don’t know if I’ll do it again next year — it’s good for training but the course ain’t exactly scenic, plus all of the cyclists can make for a somewhat dangerous/annoying ride (I ran into my fair share of douchebags who’d cycle two-by-two in the middle of the road going 18 mph on a descent). Whatever my decision for next year, I’ll make sure to triple-check the workout with Teresa.

I checked my workout schedule and saw that Teresa assigned me a 2,000 yd swim or the option of swimming with the group at Greenlake. I wasn’t thrilled with either choice, but no matter how many times I closed my eyes and opened them, expecting the workout to change to “Eat a cheeseburger, fries, and a milkshake — hard effort!”, the stupid swim workout never went away.

Jason, being the annoying training partner that he is, was all “Herp derp let’s go to the group swim!” I wasn’t crapping myself with glee at the thought of yanking on my wetsuit and trudging into water that was marginally warmer (56 degrees) than the air temperature (54 degrees), but I figured I’d have to get in the lake eventually, and since I want to improve my swimming, it’s a necessary evil.

It was raining when we arrived at Greenlake, and my teammates and I made futile attempts to shield our dry clothes from the precipitation. I pulled on my wetsuit and, anticipating how cold the water was, yanked on a thermal swimcap in addition to a regular cap. The water didn’t feel quite as cold as I thought it would be, but it was still a bit of a shock to the system.

Jas and I took off with our friends Brent and Jes. I made my way to the second orange buoy from the shore, huffing and puffing the entire way and stopping a couple times to catch my breath. By the time I made it to the buoy, it felt like I had been swimming forever. I looked at my watch. Three minutes and nine seconds. Son of a bitch.

Jason and Brent opted to swim across the lake and do the full mile, but since my first open water swim of the season is always spectacularly awful, I headed back to shore with Jes. It felt hard to breathe, like the chin strap from the thermal cap was restricting me. We went out to the buoy again, and when I got there I flagged down Thomas and his son, who were in a canoe keeping an eye on those of us who were foolish enough to be swimming that day.

Me: “Can I give you my thermal cap?”

Thomas, joking: “Man, you’re that warm?”

I yanked off my goggles, then my regular swim cap, then my thermal cap and handed it over to him. His son, meanwhile, offered some tough love to Jes.

Declan: “Want a swim noodle?”

Jes, politely: “Uh, sure!”

Declan handed her the noodle, then said in a grave tone, “You have to give it back,” as if Jes figured he was gifting it to her permanently. We all laughed and they paddled away. I felt better not having the too-tight thermal cap choking me (although, weirdly enough, I swam with it fine when I raced Boise last year; I know I’ve gained weight since last season, but I didn’t think it was all chin weight).

Then I realized something: it’s pretty damn difficult to put on a swim cap when treading in deep water. I was kicking my legs to stay afloat and attempting to yank the cap on with two hands, but my frantic efforts were unsuccessful. I looked so pathetic and useless that Jes, having taken pity on the sorry, sad sight before her, asked, “Want me to hold you?” I nodded like a little kid who had just been offered a lollipop if he’ll stop crying. She got behind me and stabilized me by holding my hips with each hand.

Then poor Jes realized that she was having problems staying afloat because now both of her arms were occupied. She warned me that I had about “ten seconds” before she was going to drop me and I’d plunge down the murky, pee-filled depths of Greenlake. Feeling the 24-like urgency, I yanked down once, twice, thrice before my fourth spazzy attempt was successful. Sure, most of my hair was hanging out the back like some sort of unfortunate swimmer’s mullet, but at least my cap was back in its rightful place.

We swam back to shore, my swim confidence officially obliterated. I checked my watch to see how long my epic return to open water swimming had lasted. A whopping fifteen minutes, during which I successfully managed to swallow a hearty mouthful of Greenlake’s finest. As I got out to try and salvage my once-dry clothes that were now soggy and rain-soaked, the wind picked up and it started pouring. The rain turned to hail, and we all waddle-ran to our cars, our wetsuits half-undone and our wet clothes bundled up in our arms. This swim, like all of my first open water swims of the year, was a big fat failure. Here’s hoping the next one isn’t quite so gloriously terrible.

Dear Hipster-Emo “I have plugs in my earlobes because there’s no way I’ll grow out of this look in 10 years and totally regret having scarred my ears, nor will I regret these unfortunate tattoos on my body” Ave Rat,

Normally I’m not one to judge people working out at the gym unless they’re doing something especially idiotic, like working out in a pastel polo shirt with a popped collar or reading a book while half-heartedly squeezing their thighs together on the vag machine for 30 minutes (has anyone else noticed that only women use that thing? They might as well extend an open invitation to everyone in the gym to look at their sweaty crotch as it’s repeatedly splayed open and shut). You, despite your carefully put together emo-hipster workout attire (complete with bright purple throwback sneaks), are no exception. I don’t care what you’re doing; I’m focused on my own workout and my music and letting my thoughts wander.

That is, until you kept farting and decimating every bit of air around me.

And don’t try to deny it and pretend it wasn’t you. I’ve constructed a bar graph charting the prevalence of fart smells in the area and where they appeared to be coming from:

100% scientifically accurate

There was no fart stench when I began my workout, nor did I notice anything from the dude two machines over; it was only after you began your regimen did my nose get bombarded by the noxious fumes emanating from your colon.

And these weren’t “Oops, I let one squeak out ha ha” farts; these were clearly “I have to take a huge shit” farts. I know you were clenching your cheeks together to prevent your shorts from taking a trip to Browntown, but trying to shake out a couple of SBDs to relieve pressure and buy yourself some time like Andy Dufresne shaking out chunks of wall from his pant leg in the prison yard, Shawshank style, so you can finish your 30 minute workout without having to stop for a bathroom break is JUST EFFING RIDICULOUS.

I would have gladly kept a teary, stink-clogged eye on your machine and prevented anyone from stealing it so you could run to the locker rooms and drop the kids off at the pool. But no, instead of succumbing to your plight and owning up to the fact that you were compacted up to your chin in feces, you stubbornly soldiered on, intent on finishing your sad little workout because getting your sweat on, whether it’s from the actual exercise or your struggle to not shit yourself, was clearly more important than being a decent human being and not gassing your neighboring exercisers to death.

You let a fog of farts tumble out of your ass on four separate occasions, forcing me to literally plug my nose and mouth so I wouldn’t have to smell or taste the foulness emanating from your bowels (I will never complain about breath control exercises when swimming again). I glared at you each time, getting dangerously closer to giving up and asking you point blank if you needed to stop so you could take a shit. Eventually, though, you finished ass-aulting everyone and completed your workout, hurriedly cleaned the machine, and stiffly puttered out of the room with obviously clenched buttocks. Thank God I didn’t use the locker room; my contents would have to be burned because there’s no way I’d be able to get the stink you were undoubtedly going to unleash in there out of my belongings.

In closing, I’d just like to point out what a magnificent asshole you are for farting throughout your workout instead of banishing that toxic abomination to the sewers where it belongs. I hope the whopping 200 calories you burned was enough to offset the psychological trauma you inflicted on half the members of the Y yesterday. The facility already has a reputation for being kind of ghetto, and your disregard for human decency and the most basic sense of hygiene isn’t helping matters.

Fuck you. Next time just go take a shit.

Sincerely,

Me

Thus, instead of being a mediocre athlete, he’s simply a mediocre direction follower. I guess that’s one of the drawbacks of being in the front — you don’t have anyone to follow. Sorry, dude. Better luck next time.

"Woooo! We're number worst! We're number worst!"

You know that when a team with a losing record emerges as the best out of a division, that division must be pretty pathetic. The Seahawks managed to do just that, clinching the wimpy NFC West with a 7-9 record and earning a playoff spot against the current NFL champions, the New Orleans Saints, this weekend. Not since the Detroit Lions’ record-breaking winless season has an NFL team made such unspectacular history of craptastic proportions. Congratulations, Seahawks, you’re playoff-bound thanks to your exceptional mediocrity. And to the NFC West, thanks for producing such awful football teams that you made Seattle’s mediocre rise to the NFL playoffs possible.