I went to the gym on Thursday, Friday and Sunday. I was feeling pretty damn proud of myself. Two Zumba classes and a kickboxing class. I am woman, I thought.
Then, I go on Facebook and see one of my high school friends is going to be in an Ironman competition in Kona, Hawaii. I was wondering, “Hmm, I wonder if that’s, like, a big deal,” because his wall post just said, “Kona!” At first I thought he was talking about his morning coffee, but all his buds were like, “You rock!” “You worked hard for this, you deserve it!”
So, I Google up Kona Ironman and it’s something like THE HARDEST TRIATHLON IN THE WORLD — “2.4-miles of swimming, 112-miles of biking, and a 26.2-mile marathon run through tough ocean waves, and challenging lava-covered terrain.”
Talk about feeling like I just got flicked in the forehead. I’m sitting here, all “I’m not a national obesity stat… yet — so booyah to me” and “I’m not on heart, cholesterol or blood pressure meds yet — so chalk one up for The Cath!” (that’s right, I was feeling so good it was NFL-like, third-person reference time), and here’s my friend Eric in an Ironman. KONA Ironman.
It would be easier to swallow this news if he was a single guy, living with the ‘rents, jobless with nothing better to do but train all day. But that’s not even it! He commutes to a magazine job in NYC every day, has a wife, a daughter, a house to take care of. And the phrase, “Back in ’82″ is more than just a “Napoleon Dynamite” reference; it’s when we graduated high school!! So, I’m like, “Daaammmmnnnn!”
At this point, rather than berate myself for not having Ironman energy that inspires 70-mile morning bike rides in freezing temperatures… or whatever!… I mentally gave myself two options:
- Option One: Get more mojo by drinking more morning joe.
- Option Two: Crank up the ol’ metabolism by launching a coke snorting habit.
Since I didn’t like the idea of running to the loo any more than coffee already has me in there, Option One: DENIED. And since I don’t cotton to the idea of a cocaine-induced heart attack, serving jail time or giving my kids any more bad examples or ammo to use against me, Option Two: DENIED.
That brought me to Option Three: Stop the crazy talk and just tear into frat-housesized bags of Fritos and Snyder’s Buffalo Wing pretzels, get cozy in a corner of the sofa and call it a day. Of course, that would have me growing out of my clothes in no time, thus mandating a clothes shopping trip — and who has the energy for THAT?!
Maybe I’ll just buy some Kona coffee, get my ass to Zumba and take it from there….
