Scary Pink Things

I'm having NIGHTMARES about Pink.

NO, not the rock star... but I suppose THAT opens up a whole new mess of comments, huh.

I'm having nightmares about the PINK Power Triathlon. Seriously, last night in my dreams it took me 6 minutes to swim 400 meters, and... 3 hours to ride my PINK bike 13 miles because I kept wiping out, and when I finally got back on my feet to run... it took me 50 minutes to run a 5K. No, seriously, I was watching the race clock reach 4 hours and thinking, "I'm running as fast as I can... but I'm still not any closer to the end of the race."

I woke up, out of breath, my legs twitching, and I half expected to be covered in Road Rash.

I thought I had come to terms with my foray into TRIstuff. I was sort of externally excited about the event and have started easing myself into a training routine. I guess the idea that I signed up for the Tri is lingering in my subconscious. Or, maybe "haunting" would have been a better word there....

I seem to recall that I swore I was never going to do a TRIATHLON... because I'm AFRAID of my bike. It's just silly to say that, no one who has run 26.2 miles in a row should have a fear of anything except Volcanos, Man Eating Sharks, and Anthony Bourdain, but, that said, I have an irrational fear of my pink Schwinn.

How does one develop a fear of a bike? My mom owned a bike shop. Heck, I used to race BMX bikes. I've mentioned it before. It was hard core, we practically wore body armor, and we tore around a dirt track with our back tires skidding and sliding into each other all the time. In fact, finishing a heat without a crash was an unusual event. If you weren't crashing once a week, you certainly weren't going fast enough or hard enough. But I wasn't that competitive, or fast . No really, I was best because there were very few girls and I was better than them. Really. I'm not competitive. except with myself. and all the students in my class. and anyone who's ever worked commission with me. and any runner who lines up at a 5K who I think I can beat. well, maybe I'm a tiny bit competitive...

Still, I suffered some seriously wicked crashes during that time in my life. One was so bad I distinctly remember that I stood up trying to figure out whose bike was whose. It was the kind of crash where you pat yourself down thinking, WOW! I'M OK!

In all that time BMXing and Bike Store Owning, we had a thing against SCHWINN bikes. We didn't sell them in "our" bike store. We were above them. By WE, I mean the collective we that kids assign to their families. I'm certain that it was my mother's prejudice, driven by the SCHWINN store that was across the street.

So, when I "grew up" I didn't have a lot of money to buy a bike or space to keep a bike, and for a long time I had no bike at all. Finally I decided that if I had a bike, my life would better. I wanted to ride with my husband and kids (they all had bikes). So, we went and bought what we could afford. And guess what that was?

A PINK SCHWINN.

Yup. So here I am, it's 2010, and I am afraid of my pink schwinn. There's just something inherently wrong with that idea... Maybe if I took her on a few dates we could learn to like each other a little more. Perhaps I need to find someone who's willing to go on a double date.