Defriended over Luna Sandals comment!

[SillyC]

Okay, I've been meaning to share this one for a while...

In the summer, I got a facebook friend request from a woman I didn't know. She appeared to be a triathlon coach, and her profile noted that she had recently won (!) a couple of tris. I assumed it was spam, as I am a mediocre recreational triathlete. Really, a perfect candidate for a coach.

But then I saw that our mutual friends were my real friends from high school. As in, the people I never lost touch with. Then I remembered who she was. Didn't know her well, since I only attended that high school for 2.5 years, but I figured she must have remembered me fondly or she wouldn't have sent the request.

Weeeelll... then I start seeing posts come up from her news feed, and she appears to be a complete AW. She blogs daily about her spectacular training, with much TMI, and not in any kind of amusing way. There's a lot of puffery. But I figured that was partly due to maintaining an image for her coaching business.

Anyhow, maybe six weeks ago, she updated her status to read:

Her: Well, that's one more toenail I WON'T lose during Ironman Florida!

Me: Try lunasandals!

Her: Heather, I already have a nice pair of Keen Sandals. I lost the toenail because of running.

Me: Lunasandals ARE for running!

Her: Well, not the kind of running that I do... ;-)

Me: Yes, not the kind of running you do. They are popular among west coast ultrarunners. So, yeah - they run on rougher terrain than you, and much higher mileage.

Then a few hours later, I had a notification. When I clicked on it, it said that i didn't have access. I was DEFRIENDED - AND Blocked! HAHAHAHAHAH!

I really thought she'd like the sandals! No more lost toenails! And, FTR, she posts her training log, and she actually runs less than I do. Not by a huge margin, but consistently less. I was a little insulted that she automatically assumed I didn't know where her toenail went. I know. Or that she tried to pwn me before even looking at the link. But Hahahahahah!

Oh, and PM me if you want a link to her blog. If LPJ really wants to be an AW, he desperately needs to hire this lady as a blogging coach.

 

[Barefoot TJ]

Hahaha!  You should have told

Hahaha! You should have told her that Barefoot Ted just finished up the Leadville 100 in a pair of Lunas he made himself. Oh well. We can't save everybody's toenails!

I just typed typed that with speech recognition software. Sort of.

 

[Barefoot Cassie]

Barefoot TJ wrote:Hahaha! 

Hahaha! You should have told her that Barefoot Ted just finished up the Leadville 100 in a pair of Lunas he made himself. Oh well. We can't save everybody's toenails!

I just typed typed that with speech recognition software. Sort of.

My MIL is a quadraplegic and "types" with voice recognition software.

 

[SillyC]

Cool on the speech

Cool on the speech recognition!

I thought about it, but I realized she might have never heard of Leadville. Triathlon is a bit navel-gazing.

 

[Barefoot Larry]

Great story. I got a freak

Great story. I got a freak black toenail from my barefoot half a couple weeks ago. I finally traced it to the real long bridge that was on the course. The bridge was ridged with horizontal grooves. I think my toenail must have caught on of the grooves. If I was wearing the Lunas, this wouldn't have happened!

 

[Danjo]

I don't know what triathletes

I don't know what triathletes have all their stuff up about, none of them seem particulary hard to me. I mean the Ironman is supposed to be the super hard ultimate test of endurance, but I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that I'll be ready to finish well under the cut-off times. I mean you have 2:20 to swim 2.4 miles (easy, I can already swim a 5k in 2:00, and I haven't ever trained for swimming, though I will of course), 8 hours to bike 112 miles (probably gonna be the hardest, I've never biked for exercise, but it should be doable), and then 6:30 to run a marathon (not up there yet, but I figure I'll be able to do at least a 5 hour marathon by this summer). So in summary.... I'm pretty sure I'll be more than ready to finish by May 2012. (Am I being cocky? Yes, probably, but I believe that with the proper training ANYONE can finish ANY race. Winning? Well we'll leave that to the "talented" people.)

So now that I've ranted about the Iron Man (I think ultra-runners are way more hardcore, and that there should be an ultra-triathlon), I think its very funny that someone would do that just because you suggested that she wear shoes, and that people more intense people than her wear them. Probably a huge ego slam. Also cool that you run farther than her.

 

[deviantrunner]

That is classic.

That is classic. Maybe we should all send her a friend request. LOL...

BTW... accept my friend request.

 

[SillyC]

Danjo, the big deal with

Danjo, the big deal with Ironman is the $$. It costs $600 just to enter, and apparently, another $1000 for the priveledge to enter. It's a really spendy sport, with bikes costing in excess of $10K. The amount of gear that is standard is incredible - and the amount of anxiety people have over their gear is something that I'd never seen in a road race. But people and money, that's complicated. People like to spend money on things they care about, and there just aren't so many opportunities to do that if you are a runner. I think triathlon attracts people that like to shop. I stuck out a bit, what with my non-shaved armpits, bare feet, and lack of wetsuit.

THAT SAID - I did two sprint triathlons this summer and volunteered as a swim angel at one of them. I had a fantastic time, and the people I met were very nice. I may do more next summer.

Regarding our comparitive mileate, it's not that surprising. Her Ironman was within a couple of weeks of my marathon (coming Saturday!), so we were simply on similar schedules. Triathletes will log lowish running miles bc, of the three sports, the run is where they'll most likely be injured.



Steve - I've thought about having you guys mass-friend her, but the lady has a serious screw loose. I didn't want to be nasty or humiliate her, and I tried really hard to eliminate the snark from my last post. I guess she just couldn't take having someone else know something that she didn't.

 

[Blind Boy]

Danjo, there are

Danjo, there are ulra-triathlons: http://www.iutasport.com/ I agree though, running ultras seem tougher than iron man races in several ways.

 

[Barefoot TJ]

I thought Ironman

I thought Ironman competitions were ultra triathlons. Anyone care to tell me the difference, distances and time-wise, etc.?

 

[Blind Boy]

According to IUTA ultra

According to IUTA ultra distance triathlon is anything longer than an Iron Man. I believe iron distance races are considered long distance by most federations.

 

[Barefoot TJ]

What are those distances? 

What are those distances? Time restraints?

 

[perryrowland]

 Hey SillyC,Now I get it!

Hey SillyC,

Now I get it! Just had to have someone interpret all the abbreviations, initials stuff you used in your post. Would you please consider footnotes or glossary next post?

Kinda behind the times,

Perry

 

[SillyC]

Hahaha!  Sorry, perry...I'm

Hahaha! Sorry, perry...

I'm a college professor, and I

 

[ajb422]

perryrowland wrote:Now I get

Now I get it! Just had to have someone interpret all the abbreviations, initials stuff you used in your post. Would you please consider footnotes or glossary next post?

Urbandictionary.com is wonderful for all these things . I'm horrible at knowing txt speak and my students would leave facebook messages that were totally indecipherable for me. The website normally even tells you where the phrase came from too. Like if you type in pwn (which I'd never heard of) it tells you about the origin of it. Its saved me so many times from having to tell people I have no clue what they are talking about. It at least lets me pretend to be up with the times

 

[perryrowland]

 Thanks, SillyC and ajb422;I

Thanks, SillyC and ajb422;

I can't wait to send a text to someone now! Thanks for the explanation in (parenthesis) I would never have know that was a heart.

Per

 

[SillyC]

Oh right!  I forgot I used

Oh right! I forgot I used pwned, too. I'm pretty sure there's no other word for pwned, though... You pwn someone else when you demonstrate that you are better than that person in public internet space. As opposed to just having an argument online, there is no "consensus" to be built after a pwning event.

 

[Danjo]

"pwned" is basically just

"pwned" is basically just "owned" but spelled wrong because o is right next to p on the keyboard. Its not exactly a traditional sense of the word owned though.

So triathletes think they're awesome because they pay a lot of money to do something? Thats just dumb. And theres a $1000 dollar fee too? I though it was just $500. Crap, maybe I won't do an Iron Man.

TJ, the Iron Man man people will tell you that it is an Ultra-triathlon, but there are no Ultra-distances involved in it, so I don't see how its Ultra at all. Especially the swimming, whoever decided to put that in the Iron Man was not an endurance swimmer. "Marathon" swims are anything 10k and over, so I'd guess an "Ultra-marathon" swim would be like 10 miles or more, but I don't think they have an actual category for that.

In my opinion an "Ultra-triathlon" should include a swim of no less than 10km, a run of no less than 50Km (the lowest Ultra-distance run, as most of us probably know), and I can't find anything quite as difinitive for cycling, but it seems that anything 100-200 miles or greater is an ultra. Lets say 200 just so its about twice an iron-man. The "technical" definition is anything longer than an iron-man. (No wonder the biking seems like it would be so hard, its an actual "Ultra".)

BB, thanks for turning me on to that, I'll have to check them out. Holy crap, according to wikipedia one of the "common" ultra-triathlon lengths is a Double Deca Ultra-triathlon (20 Iron Man lenghts) 76km swim, 3600 km bike, 844km run! The record time is like 19 days, but still! Wow.... an Iron-man everyday for 20 days.... if I was ever so bold as to add that to my list of things to accomplish, I'm pretty sure that would be the one that I would die during or shortly after completing... I'm just blown away completely. I think it may be a long time before I'm impressed by any other human accomplishment, I can't even wrap my mind around that kind of dedication...

 

[SillyC]

Danjo, the sprint and olympic

Danjo, the sprint and olympic distance triathlons are more accessibly priced, at around $100. There's a fair amount of equipment and set-up involved in a triathlon that isn't required for a road race, so I'd expect to pay a bit more for these events. I think a few of these events a year would be well within many people's budgets.

As far as effort and required training, a sprint distance is slightly easier than a half marathon but much more difficult than a 10K. An olympic is somewhere between a half-marathon and a marathon. Most races out there are sprints, and those are full of recreational athletes like me. The races I did were crazy fun. I really enjoyed them.

Most of the triathletes I've met have been really nice. I think my former friend has a crazy problem with a triathlon symptom.

 

[Barefoot TJ]

 I think it may be a long

I think it may be a long time before I'm impressed by any other human accomplishment, I can't even wrap my mind around that kind of dedication...

Wait to you watch your first child being born.

Thanks for all that background info, Danjo. There are some very brave, strong people out there.