Last week I checked my training workouts and saw that Teresa was seemingly intent on turning my taint into a giant callus on which I could strike matches by scheduling me four bike workouts: one tempo/strength ride, a recovery ride, a 3 hour interval workout, and the 7 Hills of Kirkland metric century ride on Memorial Day. She emailed me and asked if I was doing the ride. I responded with a “Maybe…who else is doing it?” Teresa directed me to our Yahoo! group forum so I could coordinate with some teammates and have someone to ride with. I, of course, was too lazy to do that so I ended...

For me, the first open water swim of the season is always incredibly crappy. No matter how much pool swimming I do, once my toes touch lake water for the first time in several months, what little swim ability and athleticism I had is left on the shore alongside a fresh little pile of grassy-colored duck poop. Last week was no exception; in fact, throw in some shitty weather along with the customary flailing and you’ve got what (I dearly hope) will be my worst open water swim of the year. I checked my workout schedule and saw that Teresa assigned me a 2,000 yd swim or the option of swimming with...

I’m at the tail end of nursing my Achilles back to health after a bout of tendinitis left me sidelined from running all winter. Lately I’ve been increasing my jog-walks and the Achilles has been feeling better and better, but my trainer has thrown in some elliptical workouts as well until I’m back in running action. Thus, I’ve begrudgingly trudged over to the Y to elbow my way to a machine in the cramped, stuffy cardio cave so I can sneak in workouts longer than the 30 minutes the equipment is programmed to allot me. While I was there last night, ellipticising it up, a girl got...

It’s hard for me to award this dude the Mediocre Athlete of the Week since he was at the top of the pack for a big city marathon and is therefore a pretty bad-ass runner, but he lost the race when he inexplicably took a wrong turn 200 meters from the finish line and headed in the wrong direction. 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...

Two weeks ago I unveiled a new regular feature on Mediocre Athlete, the Mediocre Athlete of the Week…and then last week I didn’t post one because I was busy. I know, I suck. To make up for it, for this week I thought it would make sense to roll last week’s nomination into this week’s post since they’re related to one another. Last week I was going to award the entire NFC West as the Mediocre Athlete of the Week, whereas this week the honor quite obviously goes to the Seattle Seahawks, so what the hell, YOU get crowned and YOU get crowned, Oprah-style. You know that when a...