DIY Triathlon? / New Goal for Stories

Follow-up on yesterday's post:  walking today for exercise, I started thinking about putting together my own triathlon:  I'd swim 60 laps at our local pool, heated to a lovely 80 degrees, while my son and husband watched my bike; then I'd change and hop on the bike, speeding through a 40-kilometer course I'd mapped out in advance; then I'd run a 10k.  All in the middle of the day, around 11 a.m. perhaps, not at 7 a.m. which is when the vast majority of triathlons are held.

I just don't care that much about the races, don't need them for validation; don't care to be elbowed by (or to accidently elbow) other competitors in the swim, don't like the automatic hyperventilation in those frigid waters and the ever-present, very real possibility of a heart attack...something I didn't fully understand until yesterday.

I love, with a passion, all three activities:  swimming, biking, jogging.  But I pretty much hate the way triathlons are organized (and the trend, in that respect, is downwards, with more crushing crowds of people as the sport grows ever more popular, and with gear that is way too expensive and has virtually no use outside of a triathlon--is designed to help you go one mile an hour faster on the bike or to get you through the transitions ten seconds faster--why on earth do they make the transitions part of the race, there are other ways to set it up).

I want to be fit.  I also want to have a life, not think about this sport too much, just have fun with it.

I learned, also, that at the HITS triathlon in Napa the water temperature is only 54 to 59 degrees--I thought Lake Berryessa was warmer than that, but apparently it's no warmer than the Pacific Ocean.  That's really too cold for me...

Right now there's no triathlon I'm eager to do, except the one that starts at my local pool and ends at my house.  Fitness, not fanaticism.

On a separate, but related note:  my son was sick today, which meant, very little time was spent working on the stories.  However, did manage to re-write, almost from scratch, one story that was really going nowhere, with an empty character and a very weak plot...it's pretty good now.  So that was one small victory...but I still have about thirty-eight stories to finish...oh well; revising my goal...I'm simply hoping to get the stories out before the end of the year.