An Adventure

I accidentally signed up for an Olympic distance race in Oliver, BC this Sunday. Let me unravel this for you. British Columbia is apparently a province in Canada, which is a country to our north. I am told that a province would be analogous to a state in the United States but because they're Canadian they called it the wrong name. To my surprise, Canada does more than maple syrup and put on snowless winter Olympics; they are also in the triathlon business. My profound apologies to Mrs. Olshine (8th grade geography teacher), but I was unaware that Montana is next to Canada until I drove out here in 2004 and turned the page of the atlas from Idaho to Montana and saw an enormous swath of green on top of Montana. I initially mistook this for Glacier National Park, it was, unfortunately, Canada.

On to the accidental part. Having been dealing wish some small nagging injuries over the past month, I was reluctant to sign up and had in fact decided not to race for a couple reasons: 1) I was most fearful of re-injuring myself. 2) I feel as though I'm not ready to put together a good Olympic distance race (1 mile swim, 24 mile bike, 6.2 mile run). Having decided that my injuries are sufficiently under control I talked it over with Elliot and Linsey.

When Linsey Corbin gives you advice on training or racing, it's probably a good idea to listen. Over coffee after a Big Kids Swim Lounge she said, "you should race." So I'm going to race. Worst case scenario, I'll learn something new about racing this distance, get in an awesome workout, and gain a significant amount of information about where my racing fitness is. Best case scenario, I'll be able to wrangle each discipline into a quality race and surprise myself.

I am excited though because as Canada is a completely different country, this will be my first international race... how cosmopolitan. Now just to learn to drive on the other side of the road, speak Canadian and figure out what the heck a "mounty" is.

Wellspring of knowledge and profound advice, Linsey Corbin:

(she's the one on the left)