I survived my triathlon. The jump was more than manageable–I actually was calm and ready as I jumped what was said to be twelve feet but must have been at least fifteen. I did panic on the swim, mostly, I think, from the cold. I just couldn’t put my head in the water and do the crawl stroke.

Alas this spiked my HR to, as I say here in this poem, to 144 bpm. That carried over into the bike which I cycled at 158 to 166 bpm. This was not what I wanted–trying not to fatigue to the point that the run was truly difficult.

So, the run was truly difficult. My hips were on fire. We ran on the sand for about three-quarters of a mile, which blew up my already suffering legs.

But I finished. Which was my goal.

I am entering a phase of exercising with more direction–trying to do something every day: cycling, swimming, running or functional strength training.

Here’s the thing–I love working out. It makes me feel young. It brings me joy.

Here’s the other thing–the race made me feel old.

I’m not old though–I’m fifty-eight. But when I saw pictures and video of myself participating in the triathlon, I did not look like I imagined I did.

This is a silly problem. We all, I suspect, don’t look like what we imagine. Just like our voices are not the ones we hear when we speak.

Images and recordings force us to realize the difference. At least they force me.

So I’m seeking a reset to this–focusing on the effort and trusting that to bring a more positive perception to negative thinking.

And as for this poem–I think I did something interesting here. I took the two foremost projects/activities in my life and brought them together.

One possibly not obvious at first way that I did this was to compare the numbers of the two events–the triathlon having a jump of twelve feet–jamming twelve quarts of berries.

One tie that I realized as I wrote was that my HR for the swim was twelve squared: 144.

That type of coincidence has meaning for me. It made these things have a connection that moved beyond a temporal one.

All of the numbers I present here are factors (or a multiple) of twelve–1, 2, 3, 4, 6 and 12.

On one had this is arbitrary. On the other hand it’s interesting.

The goal of this poem is to be interesting enough that someone will want to read it and might even read it twice.

The last stanza, including the last line, is the payoff of the first three. Telling two stories with alternating lines draws parallels between them, makes it clear that life is not only linear.

More, it is cards being shuffled, parts of one story stuck in between parts of another.

This image came to mind because I played SkyJo this weekend with my wife and the father of my son’s fiancee.

There must certainly be another name for this wordy description. I think the word is Steve.

My wife and I have found surprising and delightful friendships with the parents of our children’s partners. It is more than I could ask for out of life, that my children would find loving partnerships with wonderful people.

And that these relationships will not end up at some point with them in conflict on the Steve Wilcos show.

My mom watches a lot of the Steve Wilcos show. I tried to change it one day and she asked me to put it back on.

This was positive, actually, because Mom has a hard time following shows these days. Part of dementia feels like attention deficit disorder.

In this case though I got caught up in a couple arguing about who her child’s daddy really was.

Of course the drama was magnified because Mr. Wilcos withheld the DNA evidence of the true father until the end of the show. And also along the way gave lie-detector tests to everyone, which were also revealed at dramatic moments.

Really, it’s a lot like a good poem–a controlled build-up to an interesting ending.

In the case of the Steve Wilcos show, though, the opposite of the last line of my poem here: stirring so as definitely to burn.

Here is the conversation about this poem I had with my poetry mentor.