Backpacks and broken watches

When I was in 7th grade, I had what every nerdy 90s kid had:  an LL Bean backpack.  The double-wide edition.  With my initials embroidered on it.  One day, on the bus ride home from school, my daydreaming was interrupted by a slightly older kid who started yelling out, "BJ!  Haaa!  Bridget's initials are BEEE-JAYYY!"  I could sense from his voice that this should be a source of deep shame and, potentially, legal action against my parents. The problem was: I had no idea  what he was talking about.  I wracked my brain for insight into what BJ could mean, coming up empty.  "BJ, BJ...bad jerk?  B....Jasmine?  Butt...Jesus?"  My mind was shooting blanks at as confusion rapidly ebbed into cool horror.  However, as anyone who has braved middle school or a yellow bus knows, naivete was not an option.  I did what I had to do to survive middle school Darwinism: I faked it.  I turned around and, in my worldliest voice, tossed out, "Oh, I know; it's so embarassing."  As I casually turned back to my window, the interior of my mind was a landscape of confetti question marks, floating to the ground like it was 12:01 on New Year's Day.

While my own horror at what I don't know has eased up since the bus years, I have had some similar experiences in the triathlon world.  No, not sexual innuendos - cluelessness!  There is so much lingo and jargon and unspoken rules of coolness that its taken me four years to admit - or more realistically, to even realize - how much I don't understand.  

It was even worse during my first two years.  Bike computers?  Mine was set to KMH because I didn't know how to change it.  Wetsuit?  The legs on my first one were so short I had a deranged Peter Pan vibe going on.  Transitions?  My first one took twelve minutes.  FTP? Cadence? 4:1 ratio?  Heart rate zones?  Bueller?  Bueller?!

On some level, I knew that I should learn these concepts and perhaps prepare better.  However, for the first few years I did tris, I was just having fun learning a new sport.  I incrementally added to my equipment and slowly learned the "cool kid" lingo.  (Also, shout out to myself for no longer having the slowest transitions in my age group.)  In spite of all of this, there was one notable area that lagged behind: my watch. 

For years, I had worn a large, cobalt blue, $40 Timex that I go tin the men's section in the aughts.  I felt a lot of emotional resistance towards upgrading my watch.  There was the cost, of course, but also, somehow, that watch vibed with my forever-a-bus-nerd interior.  That old blue timex had also been on my wrist down ski slopes and on surf waves.  It had done a few half marathons and many more after-work catharsis runs.  If I had done all of those things with a simple stopwatch, why should triathlons be any different?, I thought.  Why should I be a cool kid?  Why should I look the part? 

Sometimes, however, decisions are taken out of our hands - or off of our wrists.  After many years and about 1,860 instances of a daily alarm that I never learned how to remove, the strap broke.  Well, actually, the strap broke twice, because the first time it broke I just duct taped it and wore it around like that for a while. (If you're wondering: no, professional women with jobs should not wear duct taped watches.  I digress.)  Finally, I accepted the stopwatch's passing.  The sands of time catch up to us all - even the keepers of time, even the beloved blue timexes.  

With the Timex off of my wrist, I decided to take a chance on a Big Girl Triathlete Watch: the Garmin 735XT.  I was slightly concerned I'd become someone who always needed to know their heartrate.  Turns out, I have, but I have also simply enjoy the drip of information.  It tames my perfectionism in a way that I hadn't thought it would - specifically because it tells me when I really *have* gone far enough, or hard enough.  I've found it is more often an excuse for celebration than despair.

It also makes me look the part.  It makes people at races more likely to come up to me and spew something about my bike's geometry.  When this happens, I have no idea what they are talking about, but I have a long history of faking it.  I just slowly turn around and say, "Oh...I know..." and let the question marks float through my mind like confetti.

Sleep with the angels now, beloved blue Timex.

*~*thx 4 the memories*~*

Dorky and excited.

Some things never change.