The Inheritance O’Floss
After eating enough Paav Bhaaji to kill a small Elephant, I ventured off to the pool after 5 hours of hard work on submitting a paper that was long overdue. Completing my PhD 10 months ahead of schedule came with a big downside, not getting all my ideas published. Academic egos are tied very heavily to publication list-size. So much so that I even had an academic (whom I thought was cute for all of three weeks) tell me “Solving a real problem for *****
According to me, research is the brain-space to think and implement ideas without the corporate or production atmosphere whose only bottom-line is money, not creativity or good engineering… anyway, what do I know?!
As I was swimming and admiring the blue squares at the bottom of the pool, I was thinking of an article I wrote in happier times and I thought I would share that with ya!
Here goes…
4/27/2009
I had two flats on my ride today and the usual lack of ambition that follows one after promptly forgetting water bottles on a 5 hour ride start in 30-degree weather with a dry wind blowing in my face. There also seems to be construction any which way you ride here and this began my morning’s parable “season of gists and conely gravelness”. There were about two-dozen cones on the main road and nope, I didn’t imagine that. The morning had started mostly normally. A big backache and inability to roll out of bed. The new training program is definitely working! I had a 5K swim off the blocks and by the way I ooh-ed and aah-ed before getting in, I knew it was going to be a long swim. In 3.5ks, it was mass delirium. I was still pretty sore from the previous day and had a lot of funny thoughts apparently. So funny that I looked like a mass turbine under-water as the bubbles percolated to the top as I giggled ceaselessly for 100meters. Try it! It ain’t as easy as it looks!
As all good stories start, this one too starts with “I knew a man back in 2006″… He said to me that if I swam any slower, I would sink. I still cannot stop laughing when I think of this comment but, I am getting better with the whole flotation habit. I used to take two times an hour to swim 4Ks (yes, that IS possible and NO I am not talking about water-jogging.. still talking swimming) but now it takes a lot less time to do 5Ks than 2 hours. As I parted water, I was thinking of all the funny chicks I had met in triathlon whose blogs I love to read. I was thinking about my friend who got an order to “cease and desist” from her marine bodyguard at a recent Half Ironman.. I was thinking of this girl whose last name sounds related to Mark Knopfler who told me about breaststrokers in Bohemia… I was three months behind on life and papers but this was normal. I was two months behind on the no-carb diet, this too was normal. I was a few days behind with dental hygene and decided that I should seriously consider the inheritance of a serious floss-ing program. Teeth are so important in triathlon. Tearing apart tape to pack the bike at the airport. Filtering water bacteria when swimming in exotic locations. Smiling like a deer in the headlights for sports photos.. and on the rare occasion, a million dollar smile can also win one a date!
Of course I search my soul everytime I have a bad race. Where IS that little stubbly piece of rock that ruined my ENTIRE day even when I was not wearing my shoe? Where IS IT? I was thinking of all the excuses one could make for a slow time or a bad race… “uh yeah, a typhoon hit right as I exited the first warm-up lap and I was worried about my new swim goggles and decided to sit this one out”… “oh.. that day I had this weird intestinal problem that did not show up until race morning”.. “ah yes, I forgot my matching knickers”.. “oh that race, man! I’ll never forget it… I was on this caffeine cocktail on race day and boy, did it not work!”. As with all normal people, I wonder if I just train to be a training queen or whether I will have my breakthrough race sometime soon. Where is that breakthrough when you need it? There is a break-even, a break-out, a break-in, a break-fast, a break-dance but, no break-through yet.
I ended the day with a three hour walk on the beach and made sushi for dinner. Now, that’s what I call a break-away! Onwards with that training log.
Anu Vaidyanathan is busy trying out new Chinese mopeds for her expanding automobile empire. Check out her unimportant ramblings at www.anuvaidyanathan.com.
