I am officially an IronNerd! What’s that you ask? Well, to promote Wellness Week here at MIT, the Undergraduate Association sponsored the IronNerd competition. IronNerd is a triathlon: swimming (200 yards), biking (3 miles), running (1.1 miles). I’m no athlete, so I just competed to prove to myself that I could do it, and I can! Here are my times:

Event Time
Swimming 6:36
Biking 11:08.99
Running 9:10.62

I actually did better than expected. Before yesterday, I had not swam in nearly a year, and my crawl stroke is not that great. Yesterday, I practiced and estimated a time of about 8:00 minutes to complete, so I was surprised that I finished in less than 7:00. For the past week I have run just over a mile every evening/morning (I work out at 2 AM) in about 10 minutes. Again, I was surprised that I finished in such a short time, especially since I probably walked for about perhaps a quarter mile. For biking, I finished about on par with my expectations. I must say that $500 bikes race much better than $100 bikes. It was great to finally get to really cut lose on my bike. Oh, and I finally bought a helmet, so next time I fall, I’ll be a bit safer. Although, my last two falls injured my wrist and thumb. I had a great time! I am happy that I was able to finish. Finally, I think it’s funny that people immediately make assumptions about people based on what they wear. When I wear a suit, people immediately assume that I came from church (on Sundays), a job interview, or some other function. Some days, I just don’t have a clean pair of jeans to put on, and a suit is all that’s in the wardrobe. Today, everyone thought I was an athlete. We didn’t have sports at SEM/Townview (my high school). The band was the football team for Townview. The computer team was SEM’s football team. I received a jacket for winning the district UIL Computer Science competition in 2003. Today, however, I had on a pair of shorts and a shirt (similar to the Under Armor or Nike Dri-fit style), and folks thought I was an athlete. They tried to put me in the competitive heat when I registered. I quickly fixed that, since I was just there to finish, not win. Clothes and gear don’t make the man win. Skill and training, however, do.