Iron Weekend

Another year another 6 successful IronMan participants! Congrats to all! IronGirl had to help one of the boys on the swim as he only started swimming lessons last fall. For the first time ever!

The energy in Lake Placid during an IronMan is amazing and as Baco Noir pointed out, it is awfully tempting to sign up. Inspired by the novice swimmer I thought I would attempt one loop of the swim course but after about 200m heard the Vancome lady in my head: “chaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, know vat? Uh-uh”.

I have to say though, not that this applies to anyone in our group, if your bike is worth 12 grand and you are wearing a $300 helmet that makes you look like spunk, you need to finish in the top 20 or stop wearing that. Clearly, it is the carpenter and not the tools. One wise guy slit a 1.5 litre water bottle along one side and duct taped it to his regular helmet. “This cost $.99” was scrawled on the side with a sharpie. Bravo I say!

I too had an endurance test this weekend and it was between technology and my patience. Keep in mind I am a little slow when it comes to adapting technology. If advancements in civilization were up to those as inventive as I, we would still be living in caves and killing our dinner with rocks, or finding it under them if we were feeling particularly lethargic.

Proudly, my home is still equipped with a rotary phone and after much badgering by friends and family alike I caved and got a cell phone last year. Despite promises of endless text conversations by my niece and nephew, I am still waiting as they have not come to fruition.

GPS in hand, mother and I headed for Lake Placid and all was fine until we approached any small town en route. Then, Starbuck Sally, or whatever her name is would try to take us around it as the “fastest route”. Fastest my eye! Even when you changed your request to “most direct”, “no toll” or anything else she did as she pleased. Typical woman really.

Frustration grew when someone (I won’t name names but there were only two of us in the car and it wasn’t me) dropped a piece of chocolate on the screen and in an attempt to clean it had us going to Garden City New Jersey instead of Garden Way (the name of the street we were aiming for).

The same foolishness took place on the way home. “Turn Left” directions added 4 miles to our route for no reason I could determine. I had visions of Albert and Rita getting led astray in the Nevada desert.

“Lost in Upstate New York” ~ I could see headlines that sounded oddly like a Sophia Coppola movie right before my eyes. Fortunately, my patient mother is used to my technological ineptitude and took it all in stride. Sally eventually got us there but not in anything that even slightly resembled a straight line.

From here on out, it’s a Pearly’s paper map for me, it doesn’t talk back!