Fritterman Triathlon

I had no plan for the day. It started as most Saturdays. I ran the deck on the crossword puzzles in the paper. I screwed up the Sudoku. I drank all the coffee. With the important business of the day behind me, I decided to do a triathlon.

No, not the Ironman or even the Tinman. I did the Fritterman. It’s the suburban version.

First, event is the Hollin Hall Errandonnee. I rode my bike to the drug store. Then got a haircut. Then picked up ten pounds of birdseed. Then I rode home, stopping along the way to chat with Nancy Duley (on her awesome 1993 Hollands bike) and her friend Stephanie (on her blue bike of a sort I can’t recall). We stood in the road on a sidestreet and gabbed for ten or 15 minutes. (I do hope the folks driving by in SUVs could see that adults in suburbia can indeed function on a Saturday morning without 3,000 pounds of steel.) Then I rode home. Total mileage: 2 1/2 miles.

Back at home I snarfed an apple and went out for round two: the lawn mowing event. I actually like mowing the lawn. Like running and hiking (see below) it has a meditative aspect to it. And I refuse to pay people to do something I learned how to do during the Kennedy administration. I finished this event in 45 minutes.

After the lawn mowing (I came in first), I headed indoors for some nuked left overs. I watched the last three innings of the Nats game on the tube. (The Nats lost. Boo.)

It was 3:30 with plenty of daylight remaining so I drove to Rock Creek Park and hiked ten miles. I hiked the Valley Trail toward Maryland and the Western Ridge Trail back to my start at Pierce Mill. It was hilly. It was muggy. It was my first hike of the year. My legs were hurting at 4 miles. Rather than make it an 8-mile hike, I pushed on. This was a pretty good decision until I missed a turn and hiked down a muddy hill and then back up. And I was doing fine until the last 200 yards back down to Rock Creek. It was pretty much straight down and my legs felt like lead. And I was still hanging in there until I stepped off a curb awkwardly about 100 feet from my car and my back seized.

I made it to the finish.

It is not true that you are given fritters at the end of the Fritterman Triathlon. That’s because I was alone and there were no fritters in sight.

When I got home I looked like Mike Myers’ Middle Aged Man. I may not be able to walk tomorrow.

So it goes.