Yep, I’m running a triathlon soon. Next weekend, specifically.

I would say that I have not been training to win this one. Actually, I have not ever been training to win a triathlon.

Maybe break a time record, but each triathlon is different, so that is not a good measure of success.

Really, I just want to finish.

For this one, I just want to start–the start is to jump off the front of a ferry and then complete a six hundred yard swim to shore.

Yikes.

Here’s what I think will happen–I will pause at the jump, but my wife by my side will count “three, two, one” and we will jump together. I will hold my nose and let myself feet first enter the ocean, sinking quickly but just as quickly brought to the surface, a combination of the buoyancy of the wetsuit and the salty water’s density.

I will have an adrenaline spike at that time. I’ll feel like I can do anything.

That will start my heart racing which will increase the number of breaths I take per minute, which will cause a resultant panic from the tightness of the wetsuit restricting my lungs from reaching their full capacity.

And then, well, perhaps I’ll just adjust and swim easily in.

I have been going to the gym and swimming with my suit on, jumping off of the side of the pool and the starting blocks to simulate the jump and then swimming from the jump.

So, perhaps I am not trying to win. But I’m working pretty hard to make sure I can at least start.

Alright, I’m out of time this morning for more musings and poetical explication, or as I call it vacillating crudities.

The featured image, fyi, is from the Postal Museum in Washington, DC, the wheels of a model post office delivery wagon on display.

Forgot this: my conversation with my poetry mentor about this poem.