A woman from Tennessee swam from Pittsburgh to Illinois via the Ohio River. It took her two months to complete the swim, which totaled 981 miles. If my coach put this workout on my schedule, I’d punch her in the face. From the article: She often was in the water for eight to 12 hours daily, resting one day per week. Swimming 8-12 hours a day?! Eff that ess. I’d flail around for an hour, say “Screw this,” and drag my sodden ass out of the river to go get some frozen custard. (Speaking of which, the swimmer celebrated the completion of her journey with ice cream and a beer, which I wholeheartedly endorse, but also with a veggie burger. Really, a veggie burger? Swimming 981 miles should require you to celebrate with at least a couple tons of animal flesh, even if you are a vegetarian.) I can only imagine that Ms. Hughes emerged from her 12 hours a day, 2 month-long swim looking something like this: She did swim in the Ohio River, so I’m guessing she had to dodge quite a bit of discarded LeBron James merchandise. As much as I hate all things Ohio, at least she didn’t attempt her feat in the Detroit River. If she did, she’d likely have emerged depressed, gunshot, and looking for a...

Last week I spent four nights in New York City, came home for a day, went to Penticton over Memorial Day weekend to train, came home for less than 24 hours, and flew to Denver (where I am right now) for work. Despite all of the jet setting, I managed to get in a decent training weekend. I have tasted Ironman Canada, and it tastes hilly and challenging. Jas and I drove to his parents’ house to carpool up to Penticton. On the way we stopped at REI so I could pick up some leg warmers because I realized it’d likely be ass cold over the weekend and I had forgotten to pack tights. We arrived at our hotel in Summerland, unloaded the bikes, and enjoyed the overcast views of the lake. On Saturday Jason, his dad and I woke up and prepped everything for our ride. We parked a few miles from the transition area and started setting everything up when I realized that the black rolled up wad of fabric I grabbed and shoved into my bag wasn’t arm sleeves like I thought, but rather compression sleeves for my legs. Fudgers! It was going to be a gray, chilly day, and my wimpo arms were surely going to freeze without some sort of cover. Jason suggested I just wear my compression sleeves as arm warmers. I didn’t have any better options, so that’s what I did. I ended up with 90 miles of compressiony goodness, but unfortunately I realized two things after the ride: The sleeves, which typically go from under my knee to my ankle, weren’t long enough to cover my entire arm. Even though the sun wasn’t out, that doesn’t mean the rays weren’t poking through the clouds. As such, I ended the ride with this B.S.: The watch tan I’m used to. The half-forearm tan? Not so much. (I’ve grown accustomed to the hairy arms though, so deal with it.) Anyway, I started riding for a whopping minute before realizing that, no fucking way, my bike computer’s cadence sensor wasn’t working again. What the shit, I just replaced this stupid thing two weeks ago! I angrily fiddled with it for a while, and it went from not reading my cadence to not reading anything. Great, now I was going to ride 90 miles with no indication of my speed or cadence. Frustrated and fueled by rage, I took off and anger-rode for an hour. After a while, Jason appeared next to me, slightly out of breath, exclaiming, “It took me forever to catch up to you! You need to slow down!” Apparently I was averaging about 24 mph and was climbing rollers going 20. To be fair, the first 30 or 40 miles of the Canada course are pretty fast, with lots of flats/downhills and a few inconsequential hills. I pouted a bit more about my broken computer but decided to slow it down in anticipation of Richter Pass. Before we got to the pass, Jason’s dad got an epic flat by running over a huge kinked wad of wire. He wrestled it out of his tire and changed the tube but wanted to stop at a gas station to properly fill the tire with air. While he was fixing his bike, I stopped inside to use the bathroom and buy more fuel. When I came out, I saw Jason barely hiding his irritation while a filthy grifter with roughly four teeth peppered him with questions about our bikes. Apparently this Canadian mountain man had been marveling at how nice our bikes were and said that someone should build an eight person stealth bomber...

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....

If you participate in lap swim at a public pool (whether you’re at the Y, a community pool, or your fancy schmancy gym), you’ve witnessed a spat about pool lane etiquette. Every pool has its own rules that swimmers must adhere to, and every swimmer has his or her own interpretation of these rules. Below I’ve shared three pool scenarios that my friends and I have encountered. Hopefully you’ll learn from these anecdotes and remember to play nice while sportin’ your Speedo and goggles. Scenario #1: Getting in the Pool Scenario #1 was witnessed by fellow mediocre athlete and training buddy Beth Garrison. There was an incident at her gym between two irate swimmers. One swimmer was doing laps in a lane when the other one entered the pool area and wanted to begin his workout. Since the lanes were full, he decided to hop into a lane occupied by someone else. The only problem is this dumb ass decided to hop into the pool at the exact same moment the swimmer in the lane was doing his flip turn. As expected, this resulted in a collision and some exchanged words. The end result is that now multiple lifeguards need to babysit the lap pool. Yep, the lap pool full of grown adults is more staffed than the kiddie pool area. Lesson learned: If you have to share a lane with someone, make sure you hop in when he or she isn’t at the same end as you. Also, getting the swimmer’s attention and letting him/her know that you’re going to be sharing is a plus. (I recommend whacking the swimmer in the head with a water noodle, or maybe dipping your toe into the water and going “Yoo hooooooooo.” Or maybe not.) Scenario #2: Sharing a Lane Scenario #2 occurred when Jason and I arrived at the public pool near our house to do a swim workout. We showed up after work, so the pool was pretty packed. There were four lanes available: Easy, Medium, Fast, and Very Fast. The Easy lane had 2 swimmers in it and the other lanes had 4. Logically, Jason and I opted to go into the Easy lane because it was the least crowded. (Also, we’re slow swimmers. Don’t you judge us.) We started our workout and eventually the woman in our lane left, leaving us with an overweight older man sporting baggy red swim trunks, gigantic goggles and some ridiculous pool accessories. His workout consisted of “running” up and down the lane, and he was quickly getting irate that Jason and I were swimming and constantly passing him. He got so irritated that he stopped at one end of the pool, glared at us for a few laps, and finally resorted to complaining to the lifeguard that we were swimming too fast for the Easy lane. Yeah, that’s right, Jason and I got tattled on by an old man who was jazzercizing during lap swim. As expected, the lifeguard shrugged at the dude as if to say, “What the hell do I care?” Unsatisfied, the man waited until we swam back to his end and started whining to us about how we’re swimming too fast, dagnabbit! (If he had a cane he would have shook it at us.) Jason pointed out to him that this lane was by far the least crowded and that it’s not fair for him to hog a lane to himself just because he’s excruciatingly slow. They continued to argue back and forth (but thankfully refrained from angrily splashing each other), with the man eventually challenging Jason to guess how old he was. Jason’s response, logically, was...

Last year was my first triathlon year, and since I wanted to do it on the cheap (well, as cheaply as I could, anyway), I borrowed a ton of gear from my friend, Christine. She lent me her old bike, swim caps, goggles, her race belt, timing chip anklet, and her old wetsuit. The wetsuit was a bit old but did its job — it prevented me from freezing to death in the chilly lake waters and it kept me buoyant. However, by the end of the season the wetsuit was starting to get even more loose fitting and tattered than when Christine had initially lent it to me — the left leg was starting to look like a bell bottom due to an increasingly growing tear, and seams started bursting all over the place. Whenever I swam I felt like water was wooshing through the suit due to its loosey gooseyness. I knew that if I wanted to race again next season, I’d have to get my own wetsuit. Well, 2009 rolled around and my training group, TN Multisports, secured a sweet sponsorship deal from Zoot. My trainer’s boyfriend, Mark, convinced me to get an uber-hardcore Zoot suit, the Zenith 2. It’s a seriously bad ass suit, with extra padded areas on the torso and legs and a thinner material on the arms and shoulders for better range of motion. The extra padding and streamlines make the suit look like the Batsuit or a superhero suit, only without the stylish cape and handy utility belt. (Note the $650 price tag — holy hell, that is an expensive wetsuit. Thankfully, I received a nice team discount.) I finally got off my lazy ass and picked up my suit yesterday. I had to try it on to make sure it fit well, and once I squeezed my flabby body into it I wanted to take some pictures but my camera battery was dead. I ended up lounging around the house and reading crap on my laptop for 30 minutes while sweating in my wetsuit until my battery was charged enough to snap a couple photos. At one point Jason shouted from upstairs, “Do you still have your wetsuit on?!” I said, “Um…”, and he came downstairs, saw me, and burst out laughing. Anyway, for your viewing pleasure: I tried going for a cool superhero pose but ended up looking mentally disabled This is exactly what I look like when I run to the transition area from the swim The only time you’ll see me smiling and swimming at the same time I’m looking forward to trying this bad boy out in the open water and seeing if it makes any sort of difference in my swim. I expect it to turn me into Dara Torres — I have the technology to be bigger, faster, strongerrrrrr. Or at least post a sub-50 minute 1.2 mile...