Well, that was a lot of scary in 24 hours

And by "scary," I'm referring to the totally not life-and-death situations of (1) my audition and (2) the indoor triathlon.

The audition was fine. I like the idea of playing the bad guy, so I read for the part of the Evil Queen. Except I told the director I would be fine playing whatever role, like if somebody better comes along I'll just play a character with two lines or something, because honestly I'm not a very good actress. I told her that. Well done, Shannon. Very professional. Hopefully she recalls my sarcasm-heavy performance at my last theatrical endeavor and just thinks I'm always being sarcastic. Or something.

Anyway, I think my problem with auditions is that I can probably read any individual line as an interesting, half-decently-acted character, but I can't consistently stay in that same character throughout the entirety of a script. One minute I'm sarcastic! The next minute I'm evil! Then I'm just some sort of deadpan, nondescript character. It'd be like if you were reading a book about an animal rights activist, and in the final scene she wears a fur coat and runs over a puppy on her way to a steakhouse.

Switching gears, as you might on a bicycle, which is the second event of a triathlon, let's talk about the triathlon! Here's the thing about this particular triathlon. As I said previously this week, it was the kind of thing where you go a set time in each activity (10 minutes swimming, 20 minutes on the stationary bike, and 15 minutes on the treadmill) and then participants are ranked according to total distance completed. This puts a tremendous amount of weight on the bike portion, since that's the portion where you can travel the farthest. Like, the bike portion is twice as much time as the swim portion, but you go about 15x farther on the bike. Which means, swimming counts for squat. Running is kind of in the middle.

So, I felt good about my swimming. I did 600 yards in the 10 minutes, which made me the second-best swimmer out of all 25 women in the race. (Unfortunately they only formally recognized the top swimmer, and she did 675 yards, which was a mere 75 yards more than I did. And also she was 24.)

For the bike, I did a respectable 6.15 miles, which wasn't as awesome as some people, but I think put me at about average. I was surprised how much my weekly spin classes helped me to pedal faster, because I generally think of myself as about the suckiest participant in that class.

Running is where I really fell apart. I haven't been running at all as of late. I've been doing a program on the treadmill that adjusts the elevation in order to keep my heart rate at 150, all while walking at 4 mph. I find that I travel the exact same amount of distance in the exact same amount of time if I just do a steady fast-walk than I would alternating running with slower walking. Also the calorie burn seems to be about the same, and even if the treadmill lies about how many calories you burn, you gotta figure at least it's consistent in its lying. And I just really like walking fast uphill way more than I like running, and it hurts my knees less. So yay walking!

Except when you're trying to compete in a triathlon with people who are running like 8 mph for the entire 15 minutes. So, I kind of sucked a fatty on the running. I was like in the bottom 5 on that one.

In the end, I came in 6th place out of 8 in my age category. I felt a little bit disappointed that I had done so well in swimming, and hung in there with the bike, only to be destroyed because I am not a good runner. And I was a little disappointed that out of all the medals they gave out, I didn't win a single one. It would have been nice to at least be the top swimmer.

Oh well, I beat all the people who spent that morning sitting on their couches, too. I stand by the classic At least I showed up.

And wait! What's that? The point of these things isn't to win? It's to have fun and push yourself physically? Oh yeah, that. Except the point of all activities in my life seems to be to see how hard I can be on myself and how much I can beat myself up for not being better. I don't mean for that to be the point; it just seems like it always is.

But actually, I did think the triathlon was fun. And I am glad I did it. It's always good to have something to work toward.

I also think this helped my weight loss efforts, not so much in terms of calorie-burning, but, you know, psychologically. I've been down on myself lately about my weight. I feel like it's going to be so long before I make a really gratifying weight loss. You know, like where I can wear a clothing size I'm happy with or be at a remotely healthy weight. It seems like such a long journey. When I first did Weight Watchers, back when I was 23, I started at 167 pounds and got down to 132 pounds. I only had to lose the first 10 pounds before people started noticing and complimenting me, and by the time I lost all 35 I was actually thin. This time around, I will have to lose 20 pounds just to get to where I was when I was 9 months pregnant. It's so discouraging.

Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh yes, the triathlon helped me feel a little bit better about myself. Because no, I am not thin. No, I am not at a healthy weight. And yes, I have a long way to go. But at least I could complete that indoor triathlon with fairly respectable showings in two out of the three categories. And I want to lose weight so that next year, I will be able to run.

I also have a new stupid little saying about my weight loss: You have to take the first steps before you can take the last. Yes, those last 10-15 pounds will be way more rewarding to lose than the first 10-15 pounds. But I can't get to the last ones until I lose the first ones.

And this becomes another example to add to the exercise-as-a-metaphor-for-life category. See, I'm kind of seeing this indoor triathlon as a good first step for further athletic endeavors. I'm finally confident enough to think about doing an outdoor triathlon, although of the sprint (that is, short-distance) variety. There's this one in Chicago August 28. Now, granted, an outdoor triathlon would require me to overcome a number of obstacles at this point, including but not limited to: (1) I don't own a bike, (2) I'm not very good at riding bikes, (3) I don't enjoy swimming in natural bodies of water, (4) I can't run more than a minute at a time, and (5) I don't enjoy wearing my bathing suit in front of large groups of people, especially while running (oh God, while running). So I haven't fully committed to this triathlon yet. And I know you'll all say, "You should do it!" But think before you answer: Would you do it?

Then I was thinking about my fairly decent swimming performance in today's triathlon and thinking, You know, Shannon, deep down, you really are a swimmer. So this thought caused me to once again revisit the idea of completing the Big Shoulders 5K Swim in September, where you swim 3 miles in Lake Michigan. Now, at the moment, I can only swim about 1.25 miles, and that's in a pool where you can push off a wall every 25 yards. So, you know, I'd have a long way to go in terms of my physical training, but also I'd have to step out of my comfort zone when it comes to swimming in open water. (Though, truthfully, a lot of my fear was developed back when I lived in California and the open water was the Pacific Ocean, where I was afraid of getting attacked by a shark. At least Lake Michigan doesn't have any sharks.)

A lot of fun athletic endeavors to think about.

In the meantime, my fitness goals for March are a little more modest. Once again my gym is having the Group Fitness Challenge, where you put your name on a sticker chart and get a sticker (gold star!) every time you go to a fitness class. There are prizes for the people who take the most classes, but I'm not aiming to be one of those people. But you do get a t-shirt for taking 20 classes, so that's my goal. It's not really about the t-shirt; I mean I have a million t-shirts. But it's good to have some kind of goal to work toward. I have kind of gotten away from group fitness classes as I've done other things at the gym, but I used to go to 7 classes a week. Seven. I'd have to do 5 a week to get the t-shirt, but that's still a lot. Not to get into too much detail, but back in the days where I took seven classes a week, Nathan was taking a three-hour nap each day, so we could go to classes that went as late as 7:30. Now the boy has given up his nap and should be in bed around 7, so evening classes are kind of out. Which means I have to cobble together some combination of morning and weekend classes to get to my 5 a week. Oh, and when I say morning, I'm also not interested in the 6 a.m. classes either. Yeah, I know.

And that was a very long account of the fitness goals past, present, and future.