SNEAK PEEK! TriDiva does Arizona!

From the super secret vaults of Triathlete Diva's IMAZ extravaganza book: How to explain the goal of an Ironman to people who don't ride their bike hundreds of miles for fun. Read on!

Breaking the News to Mom and Dad

When I first told my mom I was going to do an Ironman, she freaked out. Unlike most people who respond with "Wow" or "Impressive," my mom asked "Why?" "Because I can" was my response. I like to consider myself an endurance athlete and tend to beat more people the longer a race goes, so by doing one of the longest races mankind's come up with yet, I should beat scores of people in Arizona. Awesome.

Then it came. The lecture I knew I had in store for me. It was the same one I got when I told her I wanted to run my first half marathon. And my second and my third and my fourth. This is how it usually breaks down:

Me: Mom, I'm going to run a half marathon.

Mom: Why on God's earth would you want to do that?

Me: Because I can.

Mom: You'll get diabetes.

End of lecture. No matter if one of those half marathons was invented to raise diabetes awareness, and encourage people to stay active and healthy to avoid getting diabetes.

At this point, my mom seems a little misguided about the disease. Let me clear things up. In the early '90s, my dad, a runner since his 20s, ran the Big Sur Marathon. It is grueling, long, and hard. Within a year of this athletic feat, my dad magically got insulin-dependent diabetes. This is not the fat person diabetes. This is the evil child-onset kind. Only in my dad's case, it was 43 year old-onset diabetes. My mom has since attributed this terribly unfortunate event to that body-breaking athletic endeavor of ancient times: the marathon. (Heck, maybe she's onto something, I don't know. I have yet to run a marathon. We'll see if I get diabetes afterward. But that is one "I told you so" I would rather never ever hear.)

So now I've broken the news to my mother. I'm going to run a marathon after I swim 2.4 miles and bike 112 miles. I also have new reasons besides "Because I can" to do the event. 1) To freak out my mom (for some reason it still brings me great pleasure, even if I haven't lived at home for the last 5 years) and 2) To use myself as a scientific experiment; will I get diabetes once I finish? I sure hope not. I can't live without chocolate cake. I'd say it makes up about 25% of my diet. (More on "TriDiva's Fitness Goals" to come.)

What does my dad have to say about this? Here's how it went down with him:

Me: Dad, I'm going to do Ironman Arizona next April.

Dad: Why?

Me: To freak mom out.

Dad: Ha!

(awkward pause)

Dad: How much does it cost?

Me: You don't have to pay for it.

Dad: I'll cheer for you.