New words, new hats, new wheels

The kids have invented a few words. Most kids do. We have adapted them into our every day language. Because some of them are just too good to let go.

‘Imposterous’ I believe was first used by the eldest when she was going for ‘preposterous.’ But it was in the context of describing a person who didn’t belong in a certain place and the thing that person was doing was preposterous. A preposterous imposter was born.

“Zoop zoop” is the littlest’s catch phrase. It means to do something super quick. At least once per day somebody in the family is accused of not being ‘zoop zoop’ when they promised to be right back. It’s usually me.

“Shooey” also originates from the eldest. First used at the age of 4 while on the beach and being attacked by waves and seagulls. A combination of “oh shoot” and “shoo.”

Imposterous is my favorite and perhaps I have become too comfortable using it because I threw it out during a meeting the other day, with an actual COWORKER. Embarrassing.

The reason I bring these words to light is to explain that my performance at my second race of the double header was not zoop zoop and I felt quite imposterous.

First Hubs had to fix the bike. Well, that’s not true. First we drove to every bike shop in the area begging them to disassemble my rear wheel and fix it. Alas, it was not a fix that could be done zoop zoop.

Back at our campground Hubs started the work. He put his entire rear wheel on my bike. At a campsite! I was so impressed. I then requested he go ride the life out of the thing to make sure it wouldn’t fail.

As an aside, the smell factor, when you’re camping and racing two days in a row, is real.

Okay, the bike, while not ideal, is at least functional. The next day dawns, Sprint day. As we parked we noticed an unusual amount of college age athletes checking in. Turns out Sprint day was also collegiate day.

Hubs does a quick visual assessment of the competition and says, “this may not be your day.”

Youthful, I am not.

I made it through the swim, my usual goal. The bike leg felt really hard, very slow, I was pretty drained from the last day. I made it to the run. As I departed transition I saw Hubs, normally he yells out splits to me, or tells me how many women are in front of me. He saw me and said, “you’re doing great, go for a PR.”

I thought hmm, he’s not telling me any times or counts, clearly I’m not winning this thing.

The run felt good though, and I finished well, coming in third overall. Note my new yellow hat! Hubs mocked me at first, but later admitted it’s pretty awesome being so bright because he could always find me on the course.

(Well duh. Why do you think we’ve been dressing our 6 year old boy in fluorescent yellow and orange his whole life? Not because we think it looks good)

Sally McRae is one of my favorite pro athletes, she’s an endurance trail runner. She does races that are hundreds of miles long. This is one of her brands and I love supporting those who inspire me. She has a most excellent podcast I really enjoy (called Choose Strong) and some very cool documentaries on YouTube.

So what’s next? Well, for starters a sweet new wheel for my bike. Special thanks to Loco Tri in Leesburg for overnight shipping me the new disc wheel when I explained my terrible wheel trauma.

After some solid test riding of this new setup, I’ll be on the road heading to Georgia for my next 70.3. More details to follow on that endeavor but what you REALLY NEED TO KNOW IS THAT MY SISTER IS COMING WITH ME.

(I may have gotten in trouble for not mentioning this before now)

But I am super excited to hang out with her and explore Augusta. We are a great travel team, very laid back, up for checking out all the coffee shops and if you need more evidence of our dream team success, check out this post from our trip to Mexico last year.

I explained to her all the things Hubs did as my race crew: having a spare bike, fixing the broken wheel… the bar for Sherpa duties is set pretty high now. I’m sure she’ll be up for the challenge but she did bring up the great point that her shoes will not fit me. Short people problems.