You GO Girl!

Ugh, if I hear that catch-phrase again it'll be too soon I tell ya. I positively loathe "girl power" and last week at the Danskin clinic at REI it was just this one, big giant estrogen fest that left me feeling nauseated.

In some small way, I can understand why the Danskin Tri is so girl-centric, though. It happens to be the largest Sprint Triathlon event in the world and the Seattle race boasts about 5,000 participants; but what is truly extraordinary is that it attracts women of all ages, shapes and sizes. There must have been about 500 women in attendance last week, and a good 2/3 of them were overweight by about 50-150 pounds. Likewise, the median age there had to be about 40. There was a woman sitting next to me who registered for her first Tri and she was 62! In fact, the Danskin Tri athlete extraordinare: Sally Edwards is 58 and had just completed her 104th Tri last weekend.

But that isn't what turned me off about this event. I say all the more power to anyone who attempts to do a Tri in their lifetime. It's definitely a huge accomplishment. What bothered me was the rallying around being a woman, emphasizing that we just do things differently from those "other" people. What sort of message is that?

Perhaps there's a small amount of bitterness behind my rant in that Mary and I attempted to register for the Danskin two weeks after enrollment opened in March and we were turned away because it was sold out. Instead, we chose SEAFAIR which, in and of itself is a good race, it's just not as nationally-known and might not be as well-run as the Danskin, which has been going on over the last 17 years. Yet last week, the spokespeople opened registration to all of the attendees, pissing off a large portion of those of us who either already signed up for another race or had friends who wanted to do the race but were denied entry. I thought that was really schmarmy.

I left REI frustrated--not only because there was another opportunity to register for the Danskin, yet no one from corporate said anything about this when I called and emailed them last March; but also because the spokespeople said NOTHING about the actual race itself. Instead, it focused on the importance of training and provided women with some essential tools to begin a training program. Important to some, but not to me since I've been training for the swim over the past year and began the Tri training immediately after my marathon in April! I hoped for information about what to bring, what to eat, what to do during transitions, blah, blah, blah. Instead, I just got a Bic Soliel disposable razor and a Cubic Zirconia from Helzburg Diamonds. Wah, wah, wahhhhh.