Mo Jo: Athena Division--Say What?

Run: 3 miles
Pace: FASTER THAN TST. Oh, yeah. (Explanation below--I know, you think I took her knee out Tonya Harding style)
Athena Division Jokes: Many

TST invited me and another friend, Thompson, to Pinetop for a leisurely weekend of wine, Scattergories, and training. We are competitive, if dirty-minded, Scattergories players. In case you are unfamiliar with Scattergories, you have to come up with words that start with a certain letter (selected by a roll of the die) that fit a phrase. For example, if the phrase is "cosmetics/toiletries," and you have the letter "R," then both Revlon and rouge are acceptable answers.

I have instituted a "no adjective" rule after what is known as the "jumping puppies" incident of 2011, in which a certain player who shall remain nameless argued that this phrase was acceptable for animals starting with the letter J. You can see from this rule that I am a ton of fun to play games with.

On our way to a healthy and light meal at the local Mexican restaurant, TST and I talked about our recent triathlon entry form, which had given us the option of competing in the "Athena" division. For this particular race, it means you weigh more than 150 lbs for women. TST, of course, did not qualify, but I did. May I just say right now I am 5'9? 150+ pounds does not seem like a gigantic amount to weigh for a tall woman. Plus, the male version is the Clydesdale. Thompson and TST pointed out that this sounds like a gigantic man clomping along. At least the Athena sounds tall, glistening, and glam. Like a goddamn goddess, not a Budweiser horse. Athenas also get to order the combination plate and beef tamales if they want to.

TST had Daughter #1 and Daughter #2 with her, so on Saturday morning, she packed the kids, Thompson, me, and two bikes into the car and we went to the lake so her kids could bike along the trail. She has described in this blog her methodology: the eight-year-old bikes ahead with TST for a little bit, then TST sprints back to the four-year-old who is peddling slowly but steadily along, then she runs back to the older kid, and so on. I got to encounter this first-hand. Thompson and I were doing a normal-pace jog along the lakeside trail when TST, who had been ahead of us with Daughter #1, came flying by us at a sprint to Daughter #2. Thompson and I appreciated each other's pace at that moment.

Thompson and I jogged around the lake. I was feeling chatty.

Me: "Oh, look at the reeds."
Thompson: "Mmm."
Me: "Guess what song this is on my phone? Bass bass bass bass."
T: "Hmm."
Me: "I wonder if I should get a Vitamix."
T: [silence]

Thompson was focused and probably trying to shake me, but I was feeling strong and kept up. "Guess what song is on now?"

We got back to the beginning (it is a one-mile loop) and Thompson said, "What should we do now?" I said, "We go around again!" Thompson declined, opting to walk in the relative silence. So I ran around by myself and encountered TST, who was doing box jumps onto a park bench. She explained that having to push Daughter #2 up hills had killed her pace time and she was running 11-minute miles. I had been running in the mid-tens and decided this was the ONE AND ONLY time I was going to have a pace faster than TST, so I am telling you all about it here. Yes, I had been running flat out and she'd been taking burpee breaks, but that is of no matter, none.

Anyway, I had the Athena Division in my head. WTF, Athena Division? Who set this arbitrary weight anyway? Apparently it is not, as I first thought (in a possibly reactionary way), meant to shame the athletes. According to Runner's World, weight categories offer another change for people to place and make the races more accessible. The article says:

In running, we know that weight does make a difference. The body supplies oxygen and energy to working muscles, so the lighter the load, the better.... within reason, of course. If you took two runners, identical in all physiological aspects except their weights, odds are that the lighter runner would finish with a faster time than the heavier runner. There are formulas that predict how much time a runner can pick up in a race by dropping weight, especially over the marathon distance. In that sense, you could refer to weight as a "handicap" of sorts, perhaps similar to a handicap in golf, bowling, or even bridge.

My golf handicap is pretty high, too.

Being heavier = more challenging workouts is no big shock. The first third of Matt Fitzgerald's "Racing Weight" could be summed up as follows: Lean people run faster. Got it. Or, there is a different way to think of it (supplied by Coach): Skinny people are cheating.

Or perhaps there is another way to think of it: Athena could be considered an adjective, depending on the usage. It violates my no-adjective rule. And as it is in Scattergories, so it is in life. :)