Tri-not: Part 3: "the wet suit"

And so, today's installment of cancer grrl's tri-ing tales has her tri-ing to rent a wetsuit. It is appropriately entitled "Tri-umph of the Silly,"* or: "Sexual Dimorphism Through the Eyes of Young Triathletes..."

And the moral of today's tale is: Be ye not so silly as to attempt to rent a wetsuit in NYC a week before the tri.

Today, cancer grrl, after blithely enjoying a morning free of work worries (she is on VACATION!), and, after thoughtfully scrubbing the tub and laconically rinsing out workout clothing, ventured into the man of hattans (manhattan, for those of you unused to CG's continuing compulsion to dissect and/or backwardsify words), to rent a wetsuit.

Yesterday's delightful romp in the frothy briney (see Tri-not: Part 2) convinced CG that a wetsuit was this year's most necessary tri accessory. Why? well, those that know, tell you that the wetsuit keeps you warm, AND buoyant! Since I tend to be both hypothermic, and prone to sink like a stone, the wetsuit is a must-have for me.

However, again, pardon my stupidity, but, how was I to know that you had to rent these things eons before the actual tri? The answer to that is that I should have known. Anyone who has lived in NYC for as long as I have should know that the odds of desired/necessary object "A" being available when you desire/need it for event "B" decrease exponentially the closer you get to event B, given the high probability "C" that someone else exactly your height and weight and sex will come to the store that very morning to rent the last one of "A", and in all likelihood, will rent it exactly for your event "B". (The damned slut.)

Anyway. The day dawned cold and wet, in complete contrast to yesterday. I went to the store to rent my wetsuit. The man on the phone took my height and weight, and assured me that there were suits available in my size, a women's "medium".

However, when I arrived at said store, the damned slut who has my body had rented MY wetsuit for the very same time period that I would need it. There were no more suits in my size and sex.

I was desperate. What could I do? I asked for a men's small. And I tried it on, much to the amusement of the extremely young man waiting on me, who attempted, blushingly, to explain the difference in men's and women's bodies, which is apparently reflected in wetsuits. Therefore, he patiently instructed, the men's suit's crotch would sag and its chest would bind.

Haha. I had to laugh. I got the sucker on, although I almost gnawed my leg off in the process. The crotch was fine and the bust was fine. The SHOULDERS felt tight. Ah me. I did not wish to tell the young lad that he needn't worry about my secondary sex characteristics, because cancer and surgery took care of pretty much all of them, thank you very much. So I rented the suit. It is not optimum, but I am as comfortable in it as I can be, given that I'm not a fan of tight neoprene by any stretch of the imaginiation (sorry, hadda do it).

Now I have my suit, and will not drown. It would be good if I could practice in it, but, alas, this is not a perfect world, and will not be a perfect tri.

Thus spake Cancer Grrl.

*I recently viewed leni riefenstahl's "Triumph of the Will," the nazi propaganda film. It is a lovely film, capturing the nazi party "summer of love", and merry ole adolph h. doing his best to smile at the (aryan) children filling their puffy cheeks with certified fatherland-grown produce. Although riefenstahl goes out of her way to capture young, healthy germans, eating, washing, exercising and drilling (militarily of course) happily in the eternal sun of the third blight, and how inspiring it all is, all i could really think about was the monty python "Funniest Joke" sketch. "My dog has no nose! How does he smell! Awful!" Anyway, there's no way to view this movie without the perspective hindsight gives, so I'm not even going to attempt to say anything intelligent about it. See it for yourself.

But, see Olympia too. It is slighly less propaganda ridden, and worth it to see Jesse Owens kick butt.