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I am almost always hungry.
At lunchtime, I stare at my coworkers' unfinished sandwich crusts and try not to say, "Are you gonna finish that? Cuz I could put it to good use..." I keep trail mix in my desk drawers. I eat two breakfasts. Two. Once, on a date, I ate more than my companion. "I see you eyeing that extra piece of pizza," he said. "Why don't you just eat it?" I did. There wasn't a second date.
I don't have a tapeworm (at least I don't think I do). What I do have is a triathlon team: the Full Throttle Endurance training team. I haven't been training with them for long, but it's made an impact on me and my appetite.
I was on the track team in both high school and college. I did some running, but my main event in high school was the discus (inherited talent from The Box -- see below image). In college, I threw the hammer instead, but at 5'6" and 130 lbs that line of work was going nowhere for me (and yes, I just announced my weight on the Internet).
It wasn't until about 5 years ago that I started running regularly. I never entered any races, but just ran for myself: my sanity and my health. It wasn't until last year that I ran an actual race. I ran the Brooklyn Half Marathon in May of 2010. I finished the 13.1 miles in 1:41:40, a time I was happy with for my first race.
After I finished the Half and just to throw everyone (including myself) for a loop, I registered for my first triathlon: The Mighty Man Sprint Triathlon in Montauk, NY. A "sprint" race (0.5 mi swim, 10.5 mi bike, and 3.2 mi run) it wasn't an incredibly daunting distance, but there were a few problems:
Problem #1: I couldn't swim
Problem #2: I didn't own a road bike
Problem #3: My questionable sanity
To address problem #1, I hired a swim coach: Kacey, a recent NYU graduate and member of their swim team. On our first lesson, she told me to jump in the water and show her how I swam. So I did. I couldn't swim two laps of the pool. "That wasn't...so...bad...." she said. I always admired her positivity.
But she straightened me out and eventually I was able to swim the half mile without stopping.
The night preceding the Montauk Triathlon was a terrifying experience for me. I slept a total of three hours, listening to the wind howl Wuthering Heights style around my hotel while the ocean waves crashed loudly right outside my door.
But once I heaved myself in the water (thankfully a warm temperature), I stopped being afraid and started laughing at the whole situation. The water was a teeming mess of swimmers going in the same general direction but completely disorganized. Like cats swimming! People above me, below me, poking me in the ribs, kicking me in the head, spraying pond water in my mouth. So I started laughing. And then I started elbowing people out of the way.
My final time was 1:24:52. Afterward, I promptly fell asleep in my hotel room still wearing all my gear, including my number.
In November, I managed to get into the NYC Triathlon through the lottery. I had no idea how to train for an Olympic distance race (1 mi swim, 25 mi bike, 6.4 mi run).
My training efforts involved swimming at Chelsea Piers Gym where I would frequently see a team of experienced swimmers tearing through the pool like a group of synchronized dolphins. These people terrified me, not only because they all demonstrated what appeared to be an effortless skimming through the water, but because they all shouted and cheered and generally made a LOT of noise during the whole process. At 6 o'clock in the morning. Simmer down.
One morning, one of the coaches asked me why I didn't swim with them. Concealing my terror as best I could, I responded, "Because I'm not good enough to swim with you guys."
Turns out being good has nothing to do with it. I should know because every
