No Man's Land

Now that the Leadville race is over with, I don't have anything to train for. My original plan was to do Leadville in under 12 hours and then forget about it until I turn 50. Since I finished in over 12 hours (12:26 to be exact), the race haunts me. Why didn't I take my Power Pill Pack (3 ibuprofens & 2 Tums) sooner? Every single time I've taken this PPP dose, I've felt fresh and shiny new within ten minutes. It worked on Gold Bar Rim when I was really fat and out of shape. It worked during the Seattle-to-Portland ride. And it worked on Leadville -- but I didn't take it until near the end of the ride. Why didn't I take one PPP dose when I first bonked on Columbine? What was I waiting for? Instead of popping the pills, I sat around the last aid station for 25 minutes in the hot sun waiting for a miraculous recovery. As Mel Gibson said in The Bounty, "I AM IN HELL!!!"

So here I am, fit and somewhat trim, and nothing to train for. It's too depressing to work out hard for next year's Leadville, so I need something else to look forward to. So here it is. Ready?

Triathlons.

Yes, dear reader, as of this morning, I am now a triathlete. Unfortunately, I have a bum knee, and the doctor who did surgery on it told me not to run more than 6 miles, so I'm pretty much limited to Olympic- and Sprint-distance triathlons. I'd love to do an off-road Ironman triathlon (3.2 mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26-mile run), but I'd have to walk 20 of the 26 miles. But so what? Maybe I can still make the cutoff time. As of now, I am an Offroad Ironman Triathlete in Training. Just call me OITT. Or Oittment.