50 ways to identify triathlon obsession

Saw this on one of the triathlon forums... I'm slowly and steadily beginning to tick most of them :)

50. You are over 30 and there is still someone in your life that you refer to as “coach”.
49. Your last bike cost more than your first car.
48. You have peed outdoors more times in the last year than you did in your first year of university.
47. You think of mowing the lawn as a form of cross-training.
46. You’ve worn a heart-rate monitor to bed.
45. And it wasn’t when you were sleeping.
44. You refer to the front hall of your house as the “transition area”.
43. When you get home from a training session at the pool, the newspaper is just being delivered to your house.
42. You have changed more flat tires this year than light bulbs.
41. The most frequently used software program on your computer is the one that keeps track of your workouts.
40. You have no idea why they call Cal Ripken Jr. “Iron Man” when, after all, he was a baseball player.
39. The first three items on your grocery list are Gatorade, power bars, and gels.
38. When you floss at night, it’s to get the bugs out of your teeth.
37. Your legs move in a cycling motion while you are asleep.
36. When you see a drop of blood, your first reaction is that you spilled some red Gatorade.
35. You know how far you biked and ran last year, to one-tenth of a kilometre.
34. You think the ultimate form of wallpaper is about 64 racing bibs.
33. A 19-year old kid who works in a bicycle shop know more about you than your next-door neighbour.
32. Your children are more likely to recognize you if you put your bicycle helmet.
31. You have a vanity licence plate with the word “Kona” in it.
30. About half the shirts you own have at least a dozen logos on the back of them.
29. You don’t find the word “fartlek” in the least bit amusing.
28. When you refer to your “partner”, you mean neither your spouse nor the co-owner of your business but the person you run or bike with three times a week.
27. You shave your legs more often than your wife.
26. The closest you came to punching somebody was when they disagreed with your position on whether wearing a wetsuit amounts to cheating.
25. It doesn’t feel right that you can’t “clip “ in and out of the pedals in your car.
24. There is a group of people in your life about whom you are more likely to know how fast they can swim 100 metres than their surnames or occupations.
23. Some of the shorts you wear today are tighter than the ones you wore in high school.
22. You are frustrated with the latest Garmin Forerunner because its live readings have a margin of error of approximately three per cent.
21. There’s a separate load of laundry every week that is just your workout clothes.
20. One of your goals this year is to be faster at getting out of your wetsuit.
19. You failed high school chemistry but you could teach a course on lactic acid.
18. All you want for Christmas is something called a carbon crank set.
17. You wore a digital watch to your wedding.
16. You have to have completely separate meals from your spouse because he or she is on a low-carb diet.
15. Your bicycle is in your living room. and bedrooms
14. You have stocked up on a brand of cereal because it has a coupon that will save you money on your next two pairs of running shoes.
13. In order to establish a new personal best, you considered peeing without getting off your bike.
12. One of your proudest moments is when you lost a toenail.
11. When a car follows too closely behind you, you accuse the driver of “drafting”.
10. When you went for a job interview, you wrote your social insurance number on your arm in black marker.
9. Your spouse cried during Terms of Endearment; you cried during the television coverage of the Hawaii Ironman.
8. You are comfortable discussing the sensitivity of your nipples with other guys.
7. Your spouse is looking forward to the day when you will slow down and just run marathons.
6. You have paused in front of the mirror in your wetsuit and thought, “Hey, I look like Spiderman.”
5. You see no issue with talking about treatments for chafing or saddle rash at the dinner table.
4. You recently asked your spouse out for dinner by asking if he or she wanted to “fuel up” together.
3. For you, “bonking” no longer has a sexual connotation.
2. The magazine secretly tucked under your mattress has pictures of really expensive bicycles in it.
And the No. 1 sign you’re obsessed:
1. Most of this list doesn’t seem like a joke to you.

SMH Half Marathon

On 16th May, I lined up with 8500 other runners for the SMH Half Marathon.
Having done the Sydney marathon in Sept 09 and that being my last running event, you would (well, I did) think the preparation for this race should be smooth and easy. When I resumed training properly around March, that wasn’t going to be the case! It was obvious that I’d lost all my fitness and was struggling even to do a 5K run or 10-15 laps in the pool..
Clearly our wedding in Feb, the honeymoon and all the good food and parties in the months leading up to it was the culprit :) - But loved every minute of it :)
It took a good couple of weeks to get back to a reasonable fitness and to convince my mind to sign up for the SMH Half.


On race day, I was feeling quite fit and ready thanks to the 4-day tapering. At the start line, I met up with a couple of the hills tri club boys. Some of them were hoping for a sub 1:40 time and I knew I wasn’t going to pace them. One of the boys (Gerald) was planning to do a sub 2hrs too so we decided to pace each other. Sub 2hrs was my realistic goal, even though secretly I liked sub 1:50 a lot better :)
It took us a long time (06:06 minutes) to just get past the start line. Once we passed the start line, Gerald and I managed to stick together and run at a decent pace…

The race was quite an enjoyable one…
The most exciting part of the run was running under the harbour bridge. I’ve done many lunch time runs around the city and on the Sydney harbour bridge, but it is truly an amazing feeling to be amongst thousands of runners and run under the Sydney Harbour Bridge and enjoy the view of Opera house and circular quay!!

My official finishing time was 02:00:34.
Average pace is 5.40mins/km.
Avg HR: 170 bpm
Max HR: 190 bpm

Was hoping for a sub 2hr finish. Had a great run but was forced to slow down at times due to the crowd (8500) at times - Not sure if that is what slowed my overall time or if it in fact helped me pace myself and gave me the PB!