Watches, Aquaman and Race Entry Fees

Holy Awesomeness Batman! What's this? Timex is introducing a GPS enabled watch to hit stores in September 2010. And what's more, it actually resembles a watch, and not a small hand held Star Wars pod racer. Don't get me wrong, I like pod racers, I just do not necessarily want to wear on on my wrist. A friend of mine recently purchased a Garmin 310 XT. It's neat-o to be sure, but he does not want to wear that puppy on his wrist 24/7. I wear my Timex Ironman Race Trainer watch everyday. It is comfortable enough to even play piano with it on. I can not tell you how many watches I use to take off to play piano and leave inside the well of a grand, only to never be found again. They are now in watch purgatory.

Okay, okay... I know what you're thinking. Given the choice, wouldn't you want to wear one of those pod racers?  No way man. I guess I am just incredibly loyal to my gear. My Timex watches have had a track record of performing well, so I can not part with them. I can honestly say that I see more people with Timex race watches on than any other watch. What's the reason? Dependability and affordability. Kudos to Timex for taking the time to introduce a sleek new design and "get it right!"

Training: I got in the pool this morning for my swim: a 600 yard warm up followed by 10x100. Doug led the way pacing me this morning and we motored (for me anyway.) We averaged about 1:50, which I am okay with. Last season, I had trouble keeping my 1000 yards under 20 minutes. What a difference a year makes! My team has decided that those of us training for Ironman should just be able to go into the Y and show our imaginary "Training for Ironman" superhero cards, so that we can commandeer any piece of equipment that we need, or tell the water walkers that we have important Ironman business to do. We can then suggest they should consider doing needlepoint for an hour while we do our best Aquaman impersonation.

One the docket: I am currently investigating race entry fees. About three months ago I wrote a post about the prohibitive cost of the sport of triathlon. I love triathlon. I love training, but you have to go out there and race during the season, otherwise you do not get to reap the rewards from all the hard work you put in during the off season. The satisfaction you receive from seeing improvement in your racing is quite gratifying.

The only problem is that the sport is really expensive. The Rev3 Ironman Cedar Point is five hundred dollars. That is a lot of dough for most mortals, especially during this economic climate. Somehow, triathlons seems to be gaining popularity and races continue to sell out as more and more people are getting turned on to the sport. Among the folks I will be interviewing are Jeff Henderson—race director for the Musselman Half Ironman. He has some opinions why races are so expensive. Jeff wrote me an email recently telling me that this is definitely a hot topic of discussion in the triathlon world.