ah, monotony

Today I was reminded of how much I enjoy doing monotonous things. My morning was spent rearranging the kitchen (which consisted of little more than shuffling pots and bags of rice) and cleaning the office. These tasks were slightly sidetracked, however, when I discovered a giant tub of change amidst the clutter, and promptly took to sorting out the pennies from the higher denominations. I spent a good half hour at this task before I noticed how much time had passed and that I had little time to get ready before I had to leave the house. Rest assured that tub will provide countless hours of entertainment for me.

When I was little I used to sit in the sand for long periods of time with a magnet gathering iron filings. And during undergrad I produced a number of insanely intricate pattern illustrations for which I would sit for hours upon end drawing. I still get carried away walking on stoney beaches looking for cool rocks, or on sandy beaches looking for shells. I think this affinity for monotonous exercises carried over to swimming, where I could swim for hours upon hours and not get bored.

I think if I carried a giant tub of choins with me all the time I would never become impatient or bored, never be bothered by waiting for someone or something. But somehow I think that sorting through change during a seminar or class might be frowned upon. For those I'll have to stick to doodling and thinking about unicorns.

the dye is cast

I'm all registered for florida 2009, so unless I decide to charitably donate $400 to North American Sports, it looks like I'm doing an ironman in approximately twelve months. It's a little amusing to me, because on precisely July 1st I can distinctly remember posssessing the notion that going all the way to florida to do a race was a little absurd, and that it would be a very long time before I had either the ability or the inclination to do an ironman. It was while biking back from Embro after a 10k race with a handful of runner's choice peoples, with Alli telling me about how great it was and how everyone should do one and that there was a sizeable group of Londoners who all went down. It all seemed very far removed from me at the time, but within the better part of a couple of months I became friends with a lot of the people she was referring to, including the one who would soon become the big A to my little a.

To illustrate the serendipitous nature of my decision to sign up, here is the series of events which culminated in my $551 expenditure:

1. Moving to London. This in itself was slightly random and unplanned. In the fall of my final year at Queen's I received an email from the graduate director here portraying it as an appealing choice for math majors. I immediately dismissed it as something I would never in all my lifetime consider doing, leaving it to gather dust in my inbox. A few months later when said inbox was reaching critical mass I came upon it again. Being less than four months away from graduation and the looming dread of facing some sort of strange, foreign world outside of academia, I gave it a read-through and concluded that it wouldn't hurt to check it out. I few email correspondences and a bit of internet research later I was impressed enough to go for the 8-month masters, with the possibility of jumping into the second year of the PhD if I liked it.
   
2. Joining a cycling group. My sister Jen has been cycling and triathloning for a few years, and truthfully it had already snuck it's way into the small corner of my mind labelled "things I might like to do at some point in my life." Browsing about the interwebs one day I happened upon the Champion Bicycles web page, where they advertised their training group. Immediately I felt compelled to get a road bike, and sure enough within a couple of weeks I found a used one for a decent price that fit me well enough. After spending a small fortune on cycling gear and various cycling accoutrements, I was a little nervous about my first ride. If I didn't like it then that would be a lot of money that could have otherwise been spent on cheese and trips to the zoo. Fortunately, I was immediately in love with road biking. And with Champion being a triathlon-oriented cycling group, it wasn't long until I was doing brick workouts and happily signing up for the Lakeside triathlon.
3. Joining a running group. The first time I went to the store I bought a pair of shoes, and was informed about the marathon training group. In typical andrea fashion I immediately rejected this as "not my kind of thing". But after doing some running with Champion and a 10k on my own, I changed my mind and signed up. I missed a lot of the initial workouts because of traveling and other things, and, since I made no effort to get to know anyone, after the first month I had talked to approximately three people.
   
4. Going to the chiropractor. I have this weird rib pain thing that bothers me when I run, and after it forced me to walk a stretch in my first triathlon (as well as be in lots o' pain during the non-walking portions) I decided to try and get it taken care of. So I went to a sports chiropractor. On one of my visits a lady from the running group was there and she recognized me. We started talking and she mentioned that a group of people were biking to Embro to do the 10k on Canada Day. Of course I jumped at the opportunity to bike, and was always trying to find more people to bike with. So I emailed the appropriate people and met them on Tuesday for some biking and running. That's when I met Alli and company, made some new friends, and subsequently felt inclined to make more friends, show up at the runt club and go out for breakfast on sundays. That was the beginning of my inculcation into the world of ironman.
   
5. The runt club one friday night. Hung out with a pretty okay group of people, drank a lot, spoke very little, but acquired a ride to Camp Hayes the following morning. That was the turning point, because from then on most of my free time was spent around people involved in that kind of thing. And gradually it became an increasingly reasonable thing to do, until finally it seemed like the right thing to do. Hopefully it will still be the right thing to do 12 months from now.
   

And that's it. I went down to Florida and signed up. 7 months after first purchasing a road bike I'm in the market for a tri bike. 6 months after doing my first 10k and thinking it was long, I've done a marathon and can't wait to do more. I'm excited about speedsuits and tri shorts and 6-hour bike rides and swimming seriously again. In my estimation these are all very good things, and I think I'm going to have a thoroughly enjoyable twelve months.