Last week was the first time I swam since doing Ironman Canada at the end of August. There’s nothing quite like a 3 1/2 month break from doing something to really make you feel like you royally suck at it when you pick it back up again. I maintain that giving swimming the cold shoulder isn’t entirely my fault — when my coach puts “45 minute swim or bike” on my schedule, which option do you think I’m going to go for? The one where I can waltz over to my bike and do a spin while laughing at the poor decisions of the latest 16 and Pregnant girl, or the one where I have...

I thought I’d introduce a new weekly feature on Mediocre Athlete, partly because there are so many examples of mediocrity in the world that I’d be remiss not to share them with you, and partly to motivate me to get off my lazy off-season ass and update the blog regularly. So without further ado, I present to you the first Mediocre Athlete of the Week, the New York Giants. If you watched Sunday’s game of the Giants vs. the Philadelphia Eagles, you saw a self-destruction of pretty impressive proportions. Up 31-10 with less than eight minutes remaining in the 4th quarter, it appeared as...

The rain gods must have read my post about crappy Seattle weather and decided to troll the entire city by unleashing torrential downpours and strong winds for the past few days. Good thing I live on a hill; otherwise, I could be running into flooding problems that are plaguing many of the city’s residents right now. I’m also finally happy to be on coach’s and doctor’s orders not to run until the Achilles tendinitis heals, because there’s no way in hell I’d want to run in the kraken-summoning tsunamis unfurling outside. No running, unfortunately, means that Teresa has...

Hey, remember when I did an Ironman? (Yes, I will continue to mention it because it’s a frickin’ Ironman, people. Braggin’ rights 4 life, yo.) It was 12 weeks ago. I was in top shape — trim, fast, splotchily suntanned, energetic. Now, just three months after that, I’m working on creating a permanent Becca-shaped groove on the couch, am afraid to step on the scale, and have eaten more crap in 12 weeks than I have in 8 months. Injuries + shitty weather = PIL: Post-Ironman-Lethargy. After Ironman Canada, I signed up to do the absurdly overpriced Las Vegas Rock ‘n Roll...

On Wednesday I participated in the Swim for Life swim across Lake Washington. Teresa wanted me to do it last year, but they always do the event on a Wednesday morning and I couldn’t get off work…plus I hate swimming. This year, I figured it’d be a good confidence booster before Ironman Canada so I begrudgingly plunked down coinage to swim 2.5 miles from Medina to Madison Park. I told myself it’d be for a good cause (the Puget Sound Blood Center) and for swimming peace of mind leading into Canada. Well, it was for a good cause, but the swim was sucktacular. Sigh. I woke up at...