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By the time you read this, I will have registered for my very first triathlon. Exciting! More like that feeling somewhere between terror and hope. I'm both quietly confident of my ability as an athlete and simultaneously scared of trying something new. But that's a good thing. What would the point be in doing something easy?

Just today, I was complaining that triathletes are sort of a high-strung bunch. I maybe take back some of what I said about there being a higher ratio of jerks than in marathoning. By nature, triathlon leaves newbies with a lot of questions...questions I think a lot of marathoners have but keep to themselves. Or the pressure is a lot less maybe? If you fail at running, you're walking. If you fail at swimming or biking, you're drowning or falling on your ass. Perhaps the stakes are raised a bit.

But still, I think triathlon could be a little more welcoming. It's full of people obsessed with gadgets (usually expensive) and athletes who take the sport very seriously and everybody seems to have an opinion that couldn't possibly be wrong about the best way to approach training & racing. As I told a friend on social media who agreed with the "jerk ratio" statement, however, the nice thing about a race is that you don't have to chat while you swim. Fortunately, the encounters with triathletes are limited to...well, if you purposefully put yourself around other triathletes.

My goal is to be an ambassador not only for tri but for endurance sports more generally. It's fun. It's healthy. Anybody can do it. Seriously. You can walk a 5k. Go watch a video of the Ironman World Championships in Kona and I challenge you to not be moved. Can't swim? Do a duathlon (bike/run). Yes, it's difficult. But anything worth doing should be...at least a little. But have a sense of humor about it. Parenting and endurance sports have that in common, I suppose.

Anyway, I've signed myself up for an Olympic distance race in southern Wisconsin. It's a nearly mile swim (1.5k), a 25 mile bike, and a 6.2 mile run. It's in June. Wish me luck!