Considering Monday chick stole my phenomenal, hilarious, Pulitzer prize winning column about Halloween, I’ll go in another direction. For the record, tomorrow is my favorite holiday, and I have loved it ever since I was a little girl. Put that in your pipe and smoke it, Ms. Blanche.

Moving on, last Saturday morning I competed in an indoor triathlon. I woke up at 4:45 am to start my normal pre-race activities: cooking an egg white and ham omelet, double checking all my race gear, chugging 2 glasses of water, and watching motivational YouTube videos. My favorite is the new Gatorade commercial. It makes me want to swim for hours, bike for days, and run for miles.

I left my house and headed to the YMCA. I had been sick all week and dreaded the thought of racing, but once I went through my pre-race routine, I was ready to go and feelings of sinus pressure and a running nose disappeared. I entered the Y, dropped my pants, and ripped off my shirt (in order to get body marked, c’mon now people, get your head out of the gutter). I walked into this transition area and this is when I met the character who would make my indoor tri experience truly an experience.

Most triathletes I’ve encountered are super friendly the morning of the race and everyone talks among themselves. This particular competitor, let’s call him Javier, sported a matching navy blue spandex shirt and shorts. The shirt had the Italian flag on the front with “Italia” written above the flag, while the shorts read “Zoot” in big italic script on the side. For those of you unfamiliar with tri-gear, Zoot is a super expensive brand. Javier immediately started to talking to me when I entered the transition area.

“Good morning. So have you ever done a triathlon before?” Javier asked with an unusual amount of curiosity.

“Uh, yea.” I replied still groggy from my 4:45 am wake up. I tried not to seem annoyed. Given I was in the first heat at 7:00 am, and only about 12 other people were roaming around the cycling room and treadmill area, and I guess Javier thought I looked like an ideal candidate to interrogate about prior triathlon experience.

Javier continued, “Yea I’ve been racing for years. Do you just do indoor ones?”

I replied, “No, I do more outdoor than indoor.”

Javier got defensive saying, “Oh, I don’t do outdoor ones. I have allergies and the indoor ones are more of a challenge anyways.”

I simply said, “Ok,” and continued to set up for my race.

Javier proceeded to stretch in an obnoxious “hey look at my ass” fashion and announced to anyone within ear shot that he was going to warm up and “check out” the spinning bikes. I guess being a seasoned indoor triathlete involves major warm up time.

I started my race, finishing first in the swim, and then I started on the bike. About 5 minutes later, Javier came running from the pool to start his second leg of the tri. Let it be known he added a bright red sweatband to his balding head to complete his ensemble. Javier clipped into his spinning shoes (I’m sure they were some ridiculously expensive brand) and started spinning extremely fast. For this particular tri, a lady kept telling us to add resistance to our bikes to make it more fair. After the third time the resistance Nazi told me to add resistance cause I was bouncing too much, I calmly said, “I am bouncing because I am spinning quickly, I am not going to add any more resistance.” She huffed and walked away.

Javier went to town on the spinning bike and the resistance Nazi tried to get him to add resistance. He didn’t comply so she reached for the resistance knob on his bike and Javier snapped at her like a piranha at its prey. Everyone chuckled to themselves and continued to spin. Twenty minutes later, Javier hopped off the bike and headed for the treadmill. I was about a minute behind him and unfortunately got the treadmill next to him. The next thing I know he is talking to himself trying to motivate himself to run. “Come on let’s go!” and “Push it!” came out of his mouth every couple of minutes. About 10 minutes into my run he started walking and the self-talk increased. “Don’t do this. Come on don’t do this. Let’s go.”

I understand racing is difficult and I’m not one to knock a person who is attempting a triathlon, but Javier, come on! Do not pretend to be such a cocky pro when you can’t even jog a mile. I increased my pace to 7.3 mph, turned up my iPod, and tried to tune out Javier. He walked slower while I tried to pick up the pace, which is super difficult (in my opinion) to do next to someone who is walking.

I finished posting a personal best for the run. Javier still had about a mile left when I hopped off the treadmill. I gave him a half-smile while he shot me a look of disgust. I bet he was angry all his pre-race warm up didn't seem to help him much. Apparently I need to run next to Javier-like characters more often. Annoying self-talk from the person next to you is perfect motivation to run faster. Thanks, Javier.