The Fitness Beard
So I have a beard. This isn’t to say it’s a great beard. In fact it’s probably only a step away from “patchy facial hair,” but I think it just barely squeezes by the threshold of beard status.
I started growing the beard on the first day of training for 2011, so I started calling it “the fitness beard.” Training is going really well down here in Florida – the beard has almost 11 weeks of fitness in it! Unfortunately for the beard one weekend spent in Gainesville with old college friends earned it less desirable nicknames.
The beard week 11: in terms of masculinity does the fact that I have a beard make up for taking a small white dog for a walk?
The beard made sense in Colorado – it kept me warm on the bike. Now that I’m in Florida it just hinders the application of sunscreen. A more important development is that no fewer than three girls say that with the beard I look like Ryan Gossling from the movie “The Notebook.” I’ve never seen the movie but apparently this is a good thing! Their boyfriends/husbands said I look like Abe Lincoln. I guess I would be OK with either.
The beard week five: Sarah Haskins had to get a picture with Ryan Gossling at Brian Fleischmann’s wedding reception.
The beard is apparently a topic of dinner conversation at the OTC even after my departure. A text from Sarah Groff the other day read “has Kevin shaved?” Nope, not yet! Also, Ethan Brown is destroying me in the pool right now, but I have this beard so that’s OK, right?
My beard is not nearly as cool as Sam Beam’s beard (AKA Iron and Wine). The new album accompanies me back and forth from Clermont several times a week.
To be completely honest the beard is really annoying – it has to go sometime soon!
A Collington Christmas
As you might expect I will be flying out soon to spend Christmas with my family, but unlike most I won’t be going home. No, instead the Collingtons are going to the most dangerous region on earth (not including active war zones of course). It should be a good time! My brother works as a foreign service officer in the country where we are going. Most guess either Mexico or Columbia but neither is correct…close, though!
It won’t be the first adventurous Collington Christmas – we spent Christmas ’05 in the beautiful mountain town of Cuenca, Ecuador. At the time my brother was teaching English there (yes, these third world Christmas adventures are entirely spurred on by my brother’s worldly travels). We flew into Guayaquil, which my brother made sure to point out as the second most dangerous city in South America (behind Lima, Peru apparently). I think he likes to throw these facts out there so that we know what we’re getting ourselves into. I have lots of good memories from Christmas in Ecuador – harrowing 12 hour bus rides through the Andes Mountains, train derailments, using medium size rocks to “launch” our train back onto the tracks…and somehow convincing myself to be OK with all of this by repeating my mantra of “I’m SURE they know what they’re doing” in reference to our savvy Ecuadorian tour guides. Hopefully this Christmas will be equally memorable!
Obviously I’m not bringing a bike and I don’t envision myself doing any swimming, but my brother says we will be able to “walk very briskly” to a nicer neighborhood where I should be able to do a run or two. And once we are out of the city I might be able to run up a volcano or something. If I’m still around next week I’ll post some pictures. I’m SURE I’ll be fine…
In other news I got to do a video for TeamUSA.org about my favorite Holiday traditions. “Triathlete” must be a hard word to spell correctly. Sound it out USOC! Oh well, enjoy!
New Stuff
I think I am finally done updating my website. Yes, it took me almost three weeks to do a very minimal amount of work – menial tasks are hard during peak training/racing season! In addition to the new look I also updated the “about me” section and added previous year’s results all the way back to my first year as a professional (2006).
On another note, I’m racing at the Chicago Triathlon next weekend. The last time I raced there was 2008 and it was a blast so I can’t wait to get back there. I love the 11:57 AM start time. No 4:00 AM wake up calls in Chicago!
100th Post!!!!
Two years, three months and 30 days later here it is: my 100th blog post! I’m celebrating with a complete redesign to my whole website. Thanks to everyone that comes here to follow the exploits of my life as a professional triathlete – there will certainly be more to come!
