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 growth and success of my favorite triathlete’s coaching business; however, these rock star coaches have taken it upon themselves to come to swim class and poke their noses in my mediocre swimming business. Before, I could maybe sneak in a crooked leg kick or the occasional windmill arm and Teresa was none the wiser if she was busy inspecting the far lane. Now there are 2-3 coaches on-hand at any given moment, peering down at you like eagles scanning the plains for a field mouse to eat. A crappily swimming field mouse. Last weekend, I swam a length and brought my head up when I got to the end of the pool. The first thing I saw was a pair of feet. I looked up and Rusty was peering down at me, instructing me to widen my left arm entry. I nodded and took off to swim to the other end of the pool. 20 yards later, I pop my head up and see…another pair of feet. I sigh and look up, and Bridget is staring down at me. What does she say? “Widen your left arm.” Gahhhhhh, I already heard that at the other end of the pool. Boo, hiss. So now I can’t slack when I think the coach isn’t looking because the coach is always looking…all three or four of them. Group workouts just got a whole lot harder…damn those knowledgeable coaches. They really should mind their own business and let me make little to no progress in the water....

Though the term is kind of douchy, I’d call myself an equal-opportunity “foodie.” Okay, more of a food lover, really. The word “foodie” has a pretentious air about it, while I’m content to eat just about anywhere so long as my meal is good. I love sketchy burrito joints just as much as $400 meals at Fleur de Lys, and street food is just as delicious as [insert fancy dish with truffles]. Every year I even make a pilgrimage to Taco Bell, stuff my face full of grade-E meat and experience instant regret and self loathing. It’s been a tradition of mine for years.

Last week I spent five (ugh) days in Las Vegas for work. There’s a conference that rolls around every late fall that dumps me in Sin City just long enough for me to not want to return until the stale stench of cigarettes, perfume and gamblin’ stank finally dissipates from my clothes and suitcase. (Unfortunately, I’m heading back to Vegas in December for the Rock ‘n Roll Marathon and AGAIN in January for another conference. Kill me.) I didn’t even bother packing workout gear because I knew I was going to be obscenely busy all week and wouldn’t be able to squeeze in a run (and I figured the casino hotel would charge so much for gym access that I could conceivably purchase my own 24 Hour Fitness franchise). I had been working out fairly steadily the weeks leading to the conference, so I figured my health would be pretty good going into the event. Naturally, I was wrong. Okay, so I’ve posted in the past about how un-humanly stiff my back is. I’ve got bad genes, I work in front of a computer all day, I slouch too much, blah blah blah, you know the drill. Anyway, on Monday morning I woke up with a ridiculously stiff back. I creaked around like the Tin Man trying to get packed for my trip, and I managed to squeeze in about 30 seconds of sad foam rollin’ before Jason shooed me out the door to catch our flight. (I paid him back by being the worst traveling companion in recent history, ginap ginapping at him in the terminal and fidgeting every single minute of our flight like Ralphie in the pink bunny costume.) We got to the hotel and I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. To my horror, I was unnaturally shifted to the left like I was rockin’ a permanent gangsta lean. At this point, I was crabby as hell and just wanted to lie down, so I spent most of the afternoon on the floor staring at the carpet and wondering how clean it actually was. To make matters worse, Jason had come down with a cold so he was feeling as miserable as I was. The Gimp and The Germ made for quite the glamorous couple last week. After some sad stretching attempts and a couple of Icy Hot patches, I pretty much gave up and resorted to hobbling around Vegas with jumbo shrimp posture all week. I ran into a colleague of mine who’s an Internet marketer-slash-chiropractor, and he gave me a little TLC which helped a lot. Some of his exclamations included, “Jesus, your left IT band is so stiff,” “You’ve got muscular legs!” (always what a girl wants to hear), and “Why is your neck so STIFF?” Come to think of it, every other remark out of his mouth had to do with how stiff my body was. I think I come in just under “walking cadaver” on the Scientific Chart of Stiffness. I wasn’t my usual chummy self in Vegas because of how unhealthy and uncomfortable I felt all week. We’re back home now — Jason is still sick and miserable and my back and neck are still kind of aggravating me. I’ve been married to the foam roller all weekend long and have scheduled a long-ass massage (as opposed to a long ass-massage) for tomorrow and plan on stalking my chiropractor all week so he can hopefully pretzel my body into something resembling a normal human form again. I just want to feel healthy again so I can continue building a solid base going into next season. Grrr,...

Recently Jason and a number of my triathlon teammates raced Ironman Lake Stevens 70.3. I had been training for the race but decided at the last minute not to do it because I had traveled to San Francisco, Napa Valley and San Jose the week before and had too much booze and horrible food sloshing around my system to feel prepared to tackle a half Ironman. Nonetheless, I watched the race anyway to cheer on my friends and the BFG. A word of advice to any triathletes out there reading this: if you’re thinking of racing Ironman Lake Stevens, don’t. First of all, Lake Stevens sucks. If Washington state had a hillbilly cousin, Lake Stevens would be that hillbilly cousin’s poo-crusted butthole. It’s such a crappy town that the only thing the official Ironman race catalogs can advertise about the area is that it has a Buzz Inn Steakhouse, which looks about as classy as the bar where Jodie Foster got raped in The Accused. The town literally consists of this skeezy restaurant, a Subway, a crappy foodmart, a burger shack, and, inexplicably, a town museum (maybe they wanted to commemorate the day they scored a Subway franchise). To answer your next question, no, there are no hotels in Lake Stevens, so if you’re thinking of flying in to do this race then lucky you, you get to stay in Everett or a neighboring city. (And no, Seattle is not “twenty minutes away,” as I heard one race official tell someone over the phone; it’s more like 50 minutes.) Secondly, the “lake” part of Lake Stevens is filthy. It smells terrible and is full of garbage. When Jason swam in it the day before the race, he said the bottom of the lake was littered with beer cans and junk. Teresa said she spotted an old rusted chair while swimming. Jason and his dad once saw a half-submerged mattress in the lake after they finished a bike ride, and I had the pleasure of experiencing an obese kid with a rat tail throwing firecrackers into the lake as I was standing in it for a post-workout ice bath. This lake is the town’s urinal — they don’t give a crap about it and they certainly don’t take care of it, so excuse me for not wanting to pay a couple hundred dollars to do a race that involves swimming in it for 1.2 miles. Thirdly, the bike course is horrible. It’s two loops and is a challenge for sure, with a few tough hills, a lot of false flats, and many twists and turns. However, what I hate most about the course is that the town’s inhabitants are so mean and inconsiderate to cyclists that it makes for a stressful, miserable ride. Every time I’ve ridden the course I’ve had some redneck in a Ford F-150 angrily honk at me as he passes me at 50 mph. And surprise surprise, Ironman didn’t close off the course during the actual race so my friends said they kept getting passed by jerks in cars who would angrily swerve and honk at all of the cyclists who were racing. Jesus Christ, this race is one day out of the year — you’d think that these a-holes could show some courtesy and put up with a few hours of inconvenience, but no, they’ve gotta get to Walmart or a monster truck rally or a Larry the Cable Guy viewing party or wherever the hell they’re rushing to. The cherry on top of this turd sundae was the expo hall for the race. Race organizers had the expo hall in Everett, because, as I’ve...

My friend Colleen sent me this video of a triathlon trainer talking about the negative experience he and some of his athletes had while practicing the course in Lake Placid: Dude, if someone threw a tray of mustard at me while I was riding, I would freak the eff out and go apeshit on him. Then again, I can’t stand mustard, but still, that’s so not...