Men’s Swimming NCAA Champs

I’m going back to competitive swimming. Friday and Saturday nights I was able to watch the NCAA Men’s Swimming and Diving Championships in Federal Way. I missed seeing the one event I really cared about seeing, thanks to the dilly dallying of a delinquent friend (it was actually another friend, but since Chris drove I figured thank him with a link). I also missed the mile by being late the second night, but, really, who cares about distance swimming? 🙂

Here were the highlights of the meet:

1. 100yard freestyle – World Records are cool. (40.87)
2. 200 fly – NCAA records are cool too. (1:41.something)
3. 10m diving – Far more exciting to watch the hot tub sitters when their mistakes actually hurt.
4. Hearing Brian tell me for the 100th time that he is no longer pursuing the sport of triathlon, and will be returning to "the greatest sport known to man". (I’m going to skip pointing out the obvious flaws with this, like how it’s hard to judge a sport you’ve never actually put any effort into [tri implies there must be something besides swimming and cycling], or how people like me and Brian only ended up swimming because we were too clumsy to play soccer, too short for basketball, and too smart to play football [that’s a joke 🙂 – see? smiley face!]). I agree with his sentiment, swimming is an awesome sport, I’m sure I could still improve from my previous bests, and I’m ready to find out just how much.

That’s right. I’m done with Triathlon. I would say I’m throwing in the towel, but to be honest, I’ll need that towel much more often when I’m competing in a real sport. (Also a pure sport, unlike the mutt collage of mediocrity that we call triathlon.) In the combined words of Eric Cartman and Towlie, "Screw you guys, I’m going to bring a towel." (that really seemed like it would be a more effective quote before I started typing it.)

Here is why multi-sport is a waste of time:

1. Sport is about pursuing personal excellence, how can we do this if we make sacrifices in every sport we do?
2. Being skinny does not help in the mosh pit at a Black Sabbath Reunion concert.
3. Spandex. 🙁
4. Saying "Sorry I can’t go skiing, I have a five hour bike ride" and thinking that’s normal.
5. When did coupon books to Performance Bike become more appealing than Victoria Secret Catalogues?
6. When did $6000 for a bike begin to seem reasonable?
7.  Triathlete Blogs
8. Age Group Triathlete Blogs
9. A Blind guy asks you to race with him, then six months later decide to go to the same race that you’ll be doing, but doesn’t even ask if you want to be his partner again because he’s become so famous he doesn’t need you anymore… (is there an emoticon for crying?)
10. 4am is a time for last call, not a wake-up call.

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Today (Tuesday April 1st) is Troy’s birthday (my cat). That’s not a joke.

But everything else in this post is.

Happy April Fools!!!