Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!: July 2017

"Pre" Race Report: Tri-ing For Children's Triathlon

>> Monday, July 31, 2017

This will just be a post about leading up to the "Tri-ing For Children's Triathlon." I'll be back with the actual RACE hopefully tomorrow. (I did something like this for part 1 and part 2 of my "Trinona Triathlon" race report as well. I just didn't have time to get a full report posted right after the race.)

My "freshest" brother-in-law Matt invited me across Wisconsin to do a race in the Wisconsin Tri Series: "Tri-ing for Children's Triathlon." On Saturday, I spent about 2.5 hours in a car coming home from a family vacation. I loaded up and hopped back in the car on Saturday to drive 3+ hours out to Matt's house, and then we'd drive the remaining 2.5+ hours to the race site together. So I had 300+ miles of driving over a few hours for a dinky sprint triathlon. Fun times.

Exotic Wisconsin towns.

45 mph back-road Wisconsin highways near Matt's house.

After driving 3 hours to Matt's and 2.5 more hours of driving with Matt,
we stumbled upon the Weinermobile after taking a wrong turn. It was fate.

Me with the Weinermobile.

Applebee's the night before the race. I had a chicken breast (healthy)
topped with deep-fried mozzarella sticks (also healthy).

Our bikes tucked in at the AmericInn for the evening.

Exotic Wisconsin views from our hotel room.

FaceTiming the boys at home. Henry had a bloody nose with blood all over his face...

... and Charlie was sad because he wanted to come stay with me at the hotel.

Matt all tucked in for the night before 9:30. I sent this to his wife.
She was jealous of me. I told her to get her own man.

I slept OK at the hotel. There were some loud kids at midnight. And the hotel room would get pretty hot before the AC kicked in to make it nice and cold, so that kept me up a bit. But the night before a race is usually iffy anyway.

Breakfast still-life with race wheels, oatmeal, and banana.

Pre-race traditional selfie. (Still at the hotel.)

Leaving the hotel at 5 a.m.

I-94 was pretty dead.

Pulling into Ottawa Lake State Park before 5:30.

Pre-race bike prep.

We *thought* we were getting there early (before transition even opened).
But 1 or 2 lots had already filled up, and this was our lot after 2 minutes.

Some fog rolling off Ottawa Lake pre-race.

A final pre-race potty stop near the lake.

I didn't have any major specific goals for the race - I just wanted to race HARD. Back with my actual race report tomorrow or Wednesday (as soon as I can). Time to go stretch out my legs!

UPDATE: Here's the rest of my race report.

RACE WEEKEND! (And a Family Vacation this Past Week)

>> Saturday, July 29, 2017

I posted on Wednesday about how I'd be racing tomorrow with my brother-in-law Matt at a triathlon in Wisconsin. I have very few specific goals for this race, as it's far off on the other side of WI so I have no idea what the competition or course will be like. I *DO* know that it's part of the "Wisconsin Tri Series," so it's a legit race that should draw some decent athletes. There's an "elite" wave that I did NOT sign up for, but it appears it's all just age group divisions with no "elite" designation for awards.

If that's the case, I'd LOVE to see if I can place in my age group, and maybe hit top-10 overall. I don't know how possible that is because literally ALL I know about this race is in the paragraph above. When the race is over, I could be thrilled to be top-5 in my age group with a top-30 finish. Who knows.

I'm doing the sprint, but it will technically be the longest race of 2017 for me. It has the same 0.25 mile swim and 5K run as the Trinona Triathlon last month, but the bike ride is a bit longer: 15 vs 11 miles. Should be fun!

Throwing another wrench in a normal pre-race week is the fact that we've been gone all week. We left for a cabin in northern MN last Saturday, and we got back home yesterday (Friday) afternoon. I ate better than I USUALLY do on this trip, but I still ate crappier than normal. (One morning, I had FIVE of my Mom's fresh rolls after breakfast. See the title of this "Friday Funny" from yesterday as a simple explanation.) Here are 6 quick pics from this past week:

Uncle Dave driving us back to the cabin after fishing.

Charlie jumped in to Mama's arms after she finished an open water swim.

I Instagrammed this a few days ago: "When your boys, niece, and nephew want a ride
to the raft, you put your ankle through the tow rope and you get. Them. To. The. Raft."

Finishing a nice 33 mile ride on a long trail. (First 25 miles at 21.7 mph.)

Lots of fishing!

My folks and their kids and grandkids!

Back with more ASAP! Keep an eye on my tweets for more tomorrow!

Friday Funny 1305: Names for New Planets

>> Friday, July 28, 2017

Nasa recently asked Twitter for names for 7 new planets that were recently discovered:

Lots more funny things posted all week long on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com. HAPPY WEEKEND!!

Back with more thoughts on a race this weekend soon!

Friday Funny 1304: The Hairy Chest Swimsuit

So a reader sent me this article from The DailyMail. It was about a new "hairy swimsuit:"

Here's a well-written piece about this suit:

Who thought this would be a good idea? What men (because it had to be men, women would never do this to one another) sat around a table and said, "Hey Dave, you know what would be hilarious, hot, and disgusting all at once, bro?"

"What, Trevor?"

"A hairy swim suit for hot chicks. Like, they'd still be hot, but they'd also be gross."

"That sounds hilarious, Trevor. So, like, her boobs would be big but they'd be hairy looking?"

"Yeah, man."

"Sweet. Let's do it."

"High five."

I can only imagine that they were both high and drunk when they thought of this thing. It's the only scenario that makes sense. Why else would anyone create such an abomination? Swim suits are awful enough and my greatest fear is to be laughed at when I'm wearing one, why would I wear one INTENDED to make people point and laugh at me???

A few more pics: