zoë stagg

If you find yourself consuming more content than usual in this age of social distancing, and you find yourself grateful for that slice of distraction during the day, how much is that worth to you? Even if it looks it, NO content is effortless. Even me pretending right now that blogs are still a thing, takes effort.

And so, in this era of elevated quarantine-content-consumption AND the political spirit of the season (whereby I am not political because even though I’ve read the Hatch Act, I’m still afraid I will somehow interpret it wrong,) I would like to introduce you to my own kind of grassroots effort-

Grassroots Entertainment Subsidies.

Some people pay for cable. Some people pay for Netflix. I don’t watch either of those things, because I prefer my content, artisanal.

If you share a financial situation with me, please stop reading.

If you don’t, let’s talk about how much I pay independent creators every month and who I pay!

Pictured, Ken Reid, (@tvguidancecounselor​) TV Guidance Counselor over Shibuya Crossing.

First, merch. When I stan, I prefer to stan in public. Hey, people who listen to music wear band tees -- people who listen to podcasts wear merch.

There are a few creators that I pay directly -- they’re the Old Guard folks, who had to figure out how to monetize in the days when that wasn’t easy to do.

Direct Subscriptions:

Funemployment Radio: A Portland podcast totally famous in its own right, famous to me because one of the co-hosts lived next door to me growing up. Amusing and distraction-worthy content every single day, is absolutely worth it. $7

Keith and the Girl: There’s OG and then there’s the people who have been podcasting since iPods actually existed. Your subscription gets you their whole back catalogue and all of their spin-off shows, which I go through phases listening to. Really, I subscribe because I wouldn’t have met my BFF or survived Basic Training without them. I want them to keep doing what they’re doing. $15

Gymcastic: I want someone to talk about the best and worst leotards thoughout history and recap the 2000 All Around. Being an expert in a niche and being consistent about your art is worth money. Subscribed.  $2

I want Sordid Deets to come back so bad. They dropped a surprise ep this week and it was the best thing ever. I miss them so much.

Audio content on Patreon:

Solid Listen Network: This is the rebrand of the network that brings you Mother May I Sleep With Podcast, excellent in its own right and a podcast title that makes me jealous of the perfection, perpetually. I pay for Troy McEady. I subscribe to over 100 podcasts, his is the ONLY solo act I listen to, and he is a marvel. A delight. I’m like a tier-three sub for his Britney content alone. STAN.   $8

Last Podcast on the Left: Honestly, my subscriptions don’t typically run this mainstream. I try to use my dollars where I think they’ll make the most difference. That’s not to say they don’t make content that’s worth money, but this one was sort of forced. They went to Spotify only and as we all know, I don’t listen to music, AND they dropped their Lee Harvey Oswald series right after? Dirty. Still. Becoming mainstream means there were a lot of years you weren’t, so not mad about it. $10

True Crime Obsessed: This is the most organic and shrewd and early-adopting use of Patreon out there. Is that a usual thing to praise and reward? Good business models? Maybe not, but these cats -- SMART. They, almost from the jump, used their free feed as bait to get to the premium content. Their free feed is GOOD, but all the stuff you REALLY want? Is premium. So, so, smart. Also I like them a lot, I’m even extra tier to get the After Party.  $7

Morbid Podcast: I reward a hustle. If you’re working jobs and have kids AND make time to be consistent with your art? I’m in the Window Latching Coven because I see you. $3

Video content on Patreon:

Offhand Disney: In my list of things I am obsessed with, Disney backstories are on there. This nostalgia/business/behind-the-scenes channel with great research is awesome. VIDEOS ARE HARD.  $5

Wheezy Waiter: I love his chill, not-at-all-self-important life challenge content. He puts out a lot of extra content on Patreon, but mostly I’m just subbed because I want him to keep doing what he’s doing. $5

Paul Lucas: In one of greatest adulting failures, is that I cannot for the life of me figure out how airline rewards work and have ever only upgraded to Premium Economy out of my own pocket. I am an air-travel embarrassment. I also love very thorough, methodical reviews of stuff you might not think you’d find yourself watching a review of, like in-flight amenity kits. It’s SO SOOTHING. I love airports, and I love to be soothed. $3

Swell Entertainment: Love her. Love her personality, love the effort she puts in to the concept of each video, love that I got to watch her go from 8k to over 50k in a week? Her content isn’t your typical “Hey guys!” and that’s the point. She’s unique, and I’m here for her hustle. $3

LEMMiNO: I hate to even link this video and then look at how small the pledge is, the RESEARCH and the ANIMATIONS and the ACCENT. At the very least, if you’re interested in spooky and mysterious things at all, go subscribe on YouTube. He’s amazing.  $1

Nexpo: I sometimes like spooky stuff. (In the daytime, at the gym, where there are very few ghosts.) I like deep dives of spooky internet oddities, and his are deep. $1

Other artists on Patreon:

Funny But Mean: A sketch comedy troupe I was in in the early 00s, who is still doing the amazing feat of creating theatre in San Francisco today. It costs like $5000 just to SAY San Francisco, anymore. So they get my money. $5

The Unipiper: He’s a Portland cult figure, the unicyclist who plays the bagpipes in a Darth Vader helmet, and I just so happen to know he has a pretty great heart when it comes to his fans. That’s reason enough for me. $5

Kaytlin Bailey: I subscribed for her podcast, The Oldest Profession, which is an amazing empowering deep-dive into sex work throughout history, and stayed because she’s out there doing activist work on behalf of sex workers today. My money is more powerful in her hands than mine. $5

That’s $83 a month. Does it seem like a pretty big budget item? Maybe. But creating independent content is HARD work. Researching and being consistent and hustling because it’s content you care about making? I would rather pay the artist directly.

Like conceivably if I watched anything but YouTube, or listened to music at all, maybe I would have a streaming service or a cable package, but this is what I like. I like people making art.

I DO wish Patreon had a better “discovery” experience. To my knowledge, you have to know exactly who you’re searching for, to add them. I want to be recommended people! Browse creators to add. Maybe they’re working on it.

This could be the silliest thing that modifies my behavior every single day, maybe the weirdest moral compass point -- because nobody asked me to, there’s no outrage that I’m warrioring for that I know of, and yet it represents conscious decisions I make every day.

Reaction GIFs.

They belong to the internet, and therefore to us all, right? They are part of the language we speak to each other in digital formats, and innocent for the most part, right?

Not always. I don’t think so, anyway. GIFsploitation might actually be a thing.

Here’s what I don’t do:

I don’t use GIFs featuring kids. Sure, kids have awesome expressions. They do crazy and funny stuff. But guess who didn’t get to consent to a) being on the internet; and b) having a nonconsensual piece of media of themselves used by everyone. Where is hair-brush shaking girl now? I bet she’s a teenager and maybe not so cool with this really permanent legacy.

I don’t use GIFs representing or exploiting a demographic group I don’t belong to. I think you can absolutely culturally appropriate through GIF. If those aren’t your expressions, your experiences, I don’t think you get to wear them as a costume to win an internet argument?

I don’t use GIFs captured in the wild, mostly for the same reasons as why I avoid GIFs with kids. You fell down in public, or got captured doing something silly by a stranger? Not consensual, not okay to loop and use forever.

Also I don’t use GIFs that have the intended feeling in text on the image because it’s too on the nose and ruins the aesthetic. Closed captioning is okay.

(Have I always been perfect? I’m sure not. It’s a practice that’s evolved over time. I’m sure there are instances of me breaking these rules, don’t come for me and look for receipts. The point is, it’s an effort I make that I notice.)

All that being said, here is the nuance to this bizarrely specific personal internet ethos that applies to some, but not all of the above rules. GIFs created from media under contract and compensated for, feels okay to me. I feel okay using Michael Scott Office GIFs because the media was captured with consent, and he doesn’t represent a marginalized demographic. This applies to kids on TV in scripted situations. No Honey BooBoo, but okay old Full House GIFs. (WOW I did not know this got so specific.) ANYWAY. Do you, but eh, I don’t know. It might be worth a thought.

Also, it’s jif.

Now, that’s not liking swimming, but liking isn’t actually a skill that’s measured in a triathlon. Doing it, not drowning, getting to the end of the course, these are all measurables.

Of the three sports in triathlon, swimming seems like the biggest to-do. I mean, occasionally it’s refreshing. You don’t sweat, there aren’t cars to dodge, you aren’t bounced around like running... but still. You can’t just stumble out the front door and do it.

Plus, swimming is where the viperfish are.

In the absence of convenience and the presence of the horrors of the deep, there is trickery. Here are the Top 5 Ways I Make Swimming Something I Can Kind of Get Myself To Do:

Floored. This was a happy accident. I didn’t have a conscious thought, “You know what would make going to the pool nicer? If getting ready wasn’t akin to camping. I shall therefore surround my toes with the comforts of home! I shall buy a BATH MAT.” That didn’t happen. What did happen, was that I had one in the closet I ended up buying and not using, and it was taking up space. “Eh, I guess I’ll take it to the pool?” Do not sleep on this revolution. Not having to balance on a flip flop in a puddle while you’re trying to get dressed, makes all the difference.

Locked Up. “Yes, but!” you might be saying, “Do you haul all that bath mat glory around in a bag all the time? No, friends. Because I am a landed lady. I am a country squire. A gentry. I rented a locker. It happens to be the bargain price of 6$ a month, which means that for less than $40, I have essentially a studio apartment until July where I can keep all the stuff I don’t want to lug around, PLUS running shoes for bricks — it’s just basically the best. It makes it way less hard to get there if all the stuff you need is already there, and if you’re paying for it, there’s a little extra nudge.

Keep the Change[s to a Minimum]. It’s all about not thinking about getting in the cold water before dawn as long as you possibly can. Don’t think of it like, “I’m going to the pool at 0515,” which is hideous — think of it as continuing to sit on the couch in your jammies, your couch just happens to have a steering wheel and eventually you end up at the pool. Jammies, jammies, jammies, UGH IT’S COLD, oops I’m wet now, guess I’m swimming? Try not to think about it until it’s too late.

Like a Spa! Kinda. I suppose the theme of these tricks is trying to make it feel less inconvenient? Introducing comfort into the whole affair? As soon as you get yourself a locker of your own, ditch the dumb tiny hotel toiletries. You DESERVE the best giant drugstore body wash from the convenience store money can buy. At least you run out less often.

Head Case. This last one I didn’t see coming. I thought all swim caps were created equal. I thought, “They just keep giving me swim caps at races! I have all the swim caps I could ever need!” And then I ended up at the pool without one, and had to buy one. Wait, what? Not only are the race ones always annoyingly pink, but they are nothing compared to this buttery, tough, luxurious situation. You get what you pay for, I guess — AND you get to choose the color.

Now yes, I am lucky to have access to a giant pool which I rarely have to split a lane in AND there’s a sauna for after in the winter (Tip #6) but not every sport can be everyone’s favorite to train. These are small ways to make the mental blocks not feel so block-y. Bonus, bonus: I figured how to make one swim workout a week in the middle of the day with a training buddy. Suddenly, it feels kind of like a vacation!

Morning shopping in Đà Nẵng takes all your senses. Scooters splutter, beep, and weave, limes and chiles and pineapples are mounded in buckets next to glistening slippery fish and stacks of tofu, and the whole market pulses around you while sweat runs in trickles down your back.

Let’s not talk about the #40B440 list. It still exists. I will still get to it. I have a whole six months exactly before it has to be renamed #40B441. Let’s talk about the impulsive (compulsive?) race that I kind of signed up for the other week — that I now realize might be the exact day of Yamathon and could I can’t do both. Wahhhhhhh.

And also, by way of clicking that “Register Now” button, let’s talk about goals.

Goals are a funny, slippery thing. Or, at least the role they play in your life. There are a couple of ways to invite them into your life -- you can set reasonable ones, just above the horizon and aim your carefully calibrated plan right at it, and march toward it, mini-goal by mini-goal until you get there... OR. You can set a bunch in the way outer atmosphere, blast some effort in the general direction with a sandwich in the other hand and assume that anything you throw out there to live in your goal colony is fine, and that getting pretty close is not too shabby.

I think I live in the second world.

I did a bunch of things in 2018 that count as effort in a general direction that might not be considered a success by a lot of people. I finished the distance of a 70.3, but not in the time limit.

I did 25 miles of the Sea to Summit challenge...

...and climbed Mt. Fuji...

but not in the same 24 hours, as is the actual completion of the Sea to Summit.

I finally crossed the finish line of the Yamathon...

...after two failed attempts. It took three years to get all 29 stations.

I’m sure there are a million other ways I said “HECK YEAH I CAN DO THAT” in 2018 and came up not strictly at the actual finish line, but there are reasons? I did train for Sea to Summit -- I got gear, I put in the miles in the crushing summer weather we had this year...

But then, the school yukata festival was the day before, and I spent the day dressed like this, sweating my actual guts out.

The start line was a many-hour train ride away, I got in late and dehydrated, and SHRUG. What are you going to do? I gave it a go with the reality at hand, and I don’t know, 25 miles isn’t a totally embarrassing hike? I participated in the water dumping ceremony anyway...

In the parking lot of the last bail-out point.

I suppose this is a long-winded way to say, I don’t hit goals ALL THE TIME, and I still set them, blithely, casually, and way above a realistic assessment of my actual abilities.

And not a care was given that day. Setting your RSVPs by whether you should be invited is v. boring. Yes THANK YOU, I will be attending your coronation, I would be DELIGHTED.

Goals are just a reason to get out there. And I like big reasons, I guess. Here’s a look at 2019, so far.

January:

Frostbite Half. I’ve actually put more training into this year that in the past. Like not just showing up and deciding I’ll probably not die, I’ve actually done some long runs, so GOLD MEDAL.

January - April:

Swim, Bike, Run Japan. This is the gym’s invention, but I’m tweaking the swim distance to make it plausible. Instead of swimming to Okinawa (400 miles?!?) I’m doing a round-trip from Honshu to Hokkaido. Biking the length of Japan. Running the width.

Total distances:

Swim- 100 kilometers or about 66 days of swimming, if I do 1500m per. Which is all I can force myself to do because I really hate swimming. Not the act of it, but the sensory deprivation. Anyway. Even with 16 weeks at three times per week... it’s going to be tough.

Bike- 842 miles, or at least 52 miles per week. This is achievable and honest-keeping.

Run- 244 miles or at least 15 miles per week. Come on, I need one gimme.

March:

Miura Half. You want to know the real success story here? I figured out how to register myself for a local race, complete with the deadlines that are always 1000 years before the actual event.

May

Danang 70.3. Let’s not talk about this one just yet.

July

Mt. Fuji. For the 4th time, after finally figuring out how to use oxygen, let’s try to make the time a little more respectable this go round!

August

Sea to Summit. I don’t know why the idea of hiking from the beach near Mishima to the top of Mt. Fuji IN THE DARK in 24 hours, sunrise to sunrise SEEMS LIKE SOMETHING I COULD EVEN THINK ABOUT DOING, and why it is so tempting knowing the likelihood I can is so slim... but I like big goals and I can not lie.

September

Osaka Castle Triathlon. This is actually cool and reasonable-ish! I think it’s an Olympic distance, and there’s A CASTLE in play somehow.

It’s not a second from every day, it’s a second from some days. It’s not the most amazing video production in the history of video production, but in the service of lowering the bar and that something is better than a perfectionist’s ice sculpture of nothing?

It’s here.

Australia; America; Hong Kong. Fuji; Sea to Summit; Yamathon. Cairns 70.3; Zama sprint; teaching a kid to “snorfle.” Birthdays and regular days. Snow days and melting summer ones.

Here’s the reality: with two full-time working parents, a kid who does after-school-after-nanny activities, and a weird habit of signing up for events that take like hours to train for, on any given day there are two hours.

Two hours.

That’s time to: make dinner, change laundry around, shake out the backpack, start a bath, and read stories. And maaaybe let your brain rest for a minute before it starts all over again.

Two hours total, in any given day. And I know two hours is a luxurious amount. Our commute isn’t huge, we only have one kid’s schedule to manage, and we only work ONE job.

But on any given day, when it’s like, “I could do a blog post that would put a dent in the LIST of posts I want to write to save forever...” when you’re sitting with the mental notion that a blog post is WORK, it just never gets done.

A post IS work. Or, at least it became work. It’s corralling and editing photos, it’s creative energy, it’s ENERGY.

And that, along with time, is a very precious resource any more.

But in the olden days, didn’t blog posts just mean clicking “New Post,” bashing out some pithy observations, and hitting “Post?” Or like “Hey, here’s this cool pic with a caption!” I think it did.

Once upon a time.

I want to catch up on Australia posts. I haven’t even started on our time at The Canopy Treehouses. I want to write about Hong Kong. I have stuff to say about setting ridiculous goals and write about that time this summer I tried to hike from the ocean to the top of Mt. Fuji in 24 hours. I want to write about the fact that I just signed up for another 70.3, even though I’m a trash triathlete.

But I get stuck. In the two hours of living I get a day, that bar is too high.

So I’m going to try lowering it. Look! Here’s a cool GIF I made of the National Day fireworks we were surprised by in Kowloon. Maybe that’s enough.

67 percent of our household is desperate for a dog. Not being at home 10 hours a day and not having a house that allows dogs is a tiny hurdle in that possibility — and for a huge chunk of the rest of Tokyo, SO. 


There are tiny remedies.

Animal cafés are a thing here, it’s not just a wacky internet list, it’s true. We’ve tried to walk a balance between checking them out and thinking about how the animals might like that job. We’ve stayed away from the more exotic ones, hedgehogs are nocturnal and owls need to do owl things like deliver letters, but... 


The ones where an infinite number of laps and pats might be an okay life?

Look, October was tough for conscious citizens of the world. Sometimes, the only thing that feels like it will fix that is poodles. Lots of poodles.

So, we went to Dog Heart Café.

We went on a holiday, but got there just after they opened, so we were awarded a patch of floor right away. These guys are a pack, no question. There’s a pile of poodles, but also a beagle and a Golden Retriever and a few others. They play and swarm together and jump and bark when one of their friends comes back from an adventure, and have their pick of laps. When they’re all done with people and need a break, they curl up in a corner or hop over the gate by the cash register and hang out in the peace.

You can go an just pat for an hourly rate, BUT ALSO you can TAKE ONE FOR A WALK.

Dog Heart is right by Yoyogi Park, and for a fee (genius business model warning) you can take one of the pack out for a walk.

We walked Haru, a name that means “spring” (not that I know that because 33 percent of our household is constantly looking up Japanese dog names or anything I SWEAR.)

They outfit you with a canvas bag of all the poop bags and water and treats you’ll need, and you and your buddy can go explore the park. Talk about some very socialized pups, Haru was very happy to mind his manners on his leash with us strangers.

When we got back, there was a line down the stairs. We weren’t the only ones who needed a little emotional-support-animal break. That, plus Bront and dog_rates have made peace AND he has a doggo now? Dogs will save us*, yet.

And suddenly, it’s been three years. Suddenly, this is the house I’ve lived in the longest in my entire adult life. The longest THIS MILLENNIUM.

Three years later, and I remember every single second of that first day, trying to order my first meal and eat it exactly right. I try to add to that mental movie every day. I hope I never forget leaving to run in the early morning this week, and the kindly old man out walking his tiny, fluffy dog who stopped to let me pass and nodded with a small crinkly smile — only to pass him again as we were both heading back the other direction, this time a bigger smile and bow at the coincidence of our mornings. The two little girls in yellow safety hats, no bigger than Frankie, walking home from school, holding hands. And the developing research question that would absolutely stand up to academic scrutiny — does the more and better Japanese you use ordering at CoCo’s, correlate to the hotter a Level 2 Spice is?

It does. My p-value is SIGNIFICANT.

And it’s the every day moments and the magical little happenstances that have become tradition — if you can count, “we’ve gone twice!” as a tradition. 

I do.

Our neighborhood shrine has a ginger festival every September. There are a few carnival games, food booths, and a lovingly constructed stage for performances.

To me, even though it’s not strictly on stage, watching someone make takoyaki is worth being a good audience member. Flipping all those balls and keeping them intact? It’s amazing.

Maybe you get used to rows of dancing lanterns, maybe it becomes just a casual thing? Maybe. But if that happens, it takes longer than three years, that’s for sure. They are still so magical to me, always.

Frankie and I went to the festival last year on a curious whim. We were driving home past the shrine, which is perched on a hill and could see the twinkling and celebration glowing in the late summer dusk. We parked at home, and walked straight back.

This year, I knew what the sign said. I knew the festival was coming and we were absolutely going to go. Frankie planned all day about the hotdog and cotton candy she was going to have. As we walked over to the hill, we started to hear the thrum, the beat. We followed the sound of the taiko drummers all the way there.

The top of the hill was already abuzz. We got in line with our coins, and surreptitiously rehearsed the order of claps and bows before it was our turn. Offering made, we circled the booths and returned smiles. Frankie got her hotdog, and we scored seats in front of the stage.

As an old stagehand from another life, those spotlight guys are my people.

This summer has been hot. Not just hot, punishingly, blazingly, in-complete-opposition-of-human-life HOT. By festival time, we were on the tail end, opening the weather app every day and counting the days until the temperatures dipped. This day was one of the last, and we sat and watched the first two musical performances and sweated quietly.

And then, about the moment we were standing in line for cotton candy, it started to sprinkle. Cool little raindrops like little sparkles of relief.

We got the cotton candy in a bag instead of on a stick.

There was time to watch one more performance before we left, and we parked ourselves at the bottom of the spotlight tour. One of the back-up spotlight guys, who was helping his friends arrange a tarp above their operation, offered me his jacket. As I was thanking him and declining in my very best Japanese, the next song started.

“MOM. I KNOW THIS ONE.”

And so she does. The Sōran Bushi! She learned it for her school festival, and was very mad her yukata didn’t let her do the dokkoisho up to her standards. This time, in the back of the audience under the sprinkling rain, she danced along with them. The men at the tower looked and nodded at her very enthusiastic performance.

By this time the whole town was here, ready for the mikoshi. We stood and watched them getting ready before we wandered home.

It’s the little things. Knowing you should absolutely buy a serving of yakisoba to go before you leave the festival. Nodding hello to all the neighbors you pass, weaving through the darkened fields. Stopping at the corner store for cold drinks before you head home in the warm dark, well after bedtime.

I think it’s the sweet spot, three years — knowing just enough to join in, and not enough for the glow to fade.

I’m here. And by “here,” I mean alive, and hi. Long time, no blog.

I didn’t mean to disappear, some kind of vortex opened up that swallowed the whole summer into a whirl of... sunrise in Independence and sunset on Mt. Fuji. There were festivals and follies and work and... another day would end, and I hadn’t written.

In a life that feels too full to add another thing, this was the one thing I could skip. One thing to let go and steal back that time. I don’t like it. I didn’t want to. But it felt like survival in the moment.

I have lists of posts. I have photos. I have folders of things “To Blog.” And I’m going to. I am.

He put his arm around me and leaned in, talking low.

“This isn’t me being mean, this is just what we need to do.” I couldn’t be sure, but I think I recognized him as the man who asked last year in the middle of a monsoon in Indonesia, if I had another lap left. He continued gently, raising his voice just slightly to compete with my sniffles, “You’ve missed the cut-off, we don’t make them to be mean I promise,” I nodded, miserably. “But look, love,” I’m 99 percent sure he said something like that, if not the actual quote — the sentiment. “You are welcome to continue. You will be an DNF, but the course is open. Get out there and give it a go!”

I nodded again and carried my squished, hotel-made onigiri to the Run Out.

He wasn’t the only angel in T2, but we need to struggle through 90 km of biking before we meet her.

Where were we? Ah yes, fresh from having our hopes dashed in the inky foam of the Coral Sea. I found out after that Ryan had dialed up my mom on FaceTime to let her watch me pedal out, and when he saw that I was in a full hysterical breakdown, realized that there is nothing about my performance in any given triathlon that is safe going live. In the weeks since the race, I’ve had a realization about my relationship with the sport.

Being pregnant and giving birth is like a universally horrific and painful experience, right? And yet, there’s all these people out there with more than one kid. I was told it’s because “It’s so worth it in the end, you forget how awful it is.”

GIRL.

I remember every last excruciating millisecond of those 257 days. For that experience, that old yarn does not add up. BUT. Apparently I can spend a whole race scared and crying, and FAIL in the strictest sense of the word and come home and immediately pick races on the two continents I’m missing. (Ecuador and Cape Town, I’m coming for you.)

ANYWAY. We’re on the bike. I’d heard in the little performance art piece about the course the day before, that there’s a dude who just travels the world doing every single IRONMAN event, and he’s declared that the Cairns bike course is the most beautiful.

Oh, you beautiful tropical fish.

You can look anywhere but at the pavement right in front of you while you’re riding? What is that even like?

Someday, I’m going to start a very important translation service: taking the official Course Description copy and making it REAL. Here’s how they described it:

The undulating, and winding course will take athletes past Thala Beach Resort and Hartley’s Croc Farm to the turnaround point, approximately 6km south of Wangetti, before heading back to Port Douglas.

Here’s what it is:

Undulating STRICTLY means up and down, but there’s an undertone of gentle that… let’s just say on an out-and-back loop, there is no rejoicing in racing a downhill, there is only knowing that it will soon be a grueling uphill. The constant hills were tough, but what really ripped me to shreds was the texture of the road and the headwind. In the course brief, we’d been warned that the roads were “county roads” and that we’d be best to try to ride in the left-hand wheel rut. Like the pioneers did. I did not know much about the types of pavement before this race, but I now know that peculiar specifically to asphalt, is a soul-crushing theft of effort. I could NOT get a leg up on it. I pedaled and pedaled and watched my speedometer and worried.

I managed one successful water bottle exchange while still moving and felt like a (slow and wobbly) boss. The road up the coast and back was closed, blessedly. It took 30 miles or so, but eventually I stopped cringing and remembering the awfulness of last year with every course monitor’s scooter that roared up behind me, and I pedaled.

On the way back, I crested a hill and saw a tent. By this point, I was already doing the complicated math as to whether I was going to make it to T2 in time, and a guy stepped out from the tent and motioned with his hand.

OH GOD. IS HE PULLING ME OFF THE COURSE? IS HE GOING TO MAKE ME GET IN A SWEEPER WAGON?

“I just need to let you know,” he started…

NO NO NO NO NO

“That this is the top of the last hill!” He looked triumphant and helpful.

I started crying. Again.

I don’t know, fam, but I’m probably going to need some kind of special warning vest for next race.

Eventually, I was out of the winding coastal road, and on back roads in to town. Then, the wind kicked up. Now of course I didn’t expect the race to be a glassy pool and a spin bike in an air-conditioned room, but DANG. When they say Australia basically just wants to kill you, you don’t imagine your death will be from all the effort needed to overcome inertia, but here we are.

I hit what had to be one of the last aid stations, and wanted water badly. I hadn’t done a great job of eating on the bike, because eating at 20 mph is freaking hard, but I’d been hydrating pretty good. I considered trying to exchange bottles and then just stopped.

“I’m not good at this usually, and I’m really not good at it tired.” I explained to the nice volunteer.

Those last five miles… were peak struggle. Everything was screaming, I was sick of the wind, and I just wanted off the bike. Eventually I started seeing people on the run course. Oh yeah, I feel like THIS, and I have a half marathon to run now.

Fun vacation.

Bike: 4:22:55

All I remember about getting to T2 is that it was full of bikes already. Suddenly, a lady in a volunteer shirt materialized next to me.

“You all right? Brilliant job, let’s get you to your spot.” She steered me through the racks as I walked my bike in a daze of tears.

“I’m okay. I’m okay. I’m just going to… I’m okay.”

I was trying to tell her my dismal scene needs I must act alone, but she wasn’t having it. She stayed next to my spot, chatting as I wobbled to get my bike shoes off. “Here’s the good news!” She continued. “While the cut-off has technically passed, you have loads of time!” There it was, the official proclamation that I’d busted. “One year,” she continued, “I only made it with ONE minute to spare. Another year, one of my friends took 12 whole hours to finish the Half, but he did it!”

Wait, I might be crying again…now.

“Why don’t you see what you can do? Start the run and see how it goes.” I got my running shoes and visor on, and slipped on my fuel belt. “You all right? Good luck, you’ve got this!”

I headed out, and got the official okay to keep going from the kindly course director at the beginning of this saga, and gingerly started to trot. This is where I finally felt like there was a part of me that could do this. All of the running off the bike all training cycle kicked in. I’d been WRECKED on the bike, and now I felt…okay?! What’s even happening?

I ran past Ryan and Frankie and told them I was going to give finishing a go, and trotted on. I WAS DOING THIS. The run course was flat as a pancake and packed with spectators. I started to catch up on the fuel I missed on the bike, and relished the full-fat Coke at each aid station. I wouldn’t touch the stuff if I wasn’t trying to kill myself physically in other ways, but when you are? It tastes like heaven. I had it on my Fuji climb last weekend, and can confirm — Gatorade, who?

There were still tons of 70.3 competitors out there when I started, but as they dwindled, I was VERY careful to make myself as invisible as possible. I stayed well out of anyone’s way racing the 140.6, hugging the shoulder of the path and waiting at the aid stations until they were totally clear before I approached. (The run course was on an esplanade with splash pools, which Frankie took full advantage of.)

Omg those aid stations when you’re not the last one on the course? STOCKED. The run was two laps of the same loop, so the second time through — finally feeling like I was going to very maybe finish this thing — I thanked the volunteers handing out watermelon, “This is my favorite restaurant in Cairns!” I had a lot of time to think on the course, and while I spent a lot of time feeling bad about taking so long, it occurred to me that if the race was only the fastest people, they would miss out on a heck of a lot of entry fees from us back-of-the-packers. While it’s weird to do a sport with professionals out there at the same time, I’d like to think by virtue of it being inclusionary, they can offer more amenities and support to everyone.

I don’t know exactly when I knew I would finish, maybe after the first loop, when my feet were still dry, there was no monsoon, and I was kind of feeling physically… fine? Fine-ish? I was IN THIS. No, I didn’t strictly run the entire way, but I kept moving forward, every single step that much closer to the finish line. Finally, I could hear the announcer and the bells and drums and cheering of the end.

Here’s where I put my finish in humiliating perspective: The woman who won the FULL had a faster time that me doing the HALF. I don’t know what to tell you guys, I’m slow AF. But I have a heck of a lot of Don’t Quit. I ran down the finish line shoot, with the guy on the microphone announcing my name. I got to the end, and he said, “It’s all right to stop now, you made it!”

And then I cried a little more.

Run: 3:30:24

Total: 9:11:22

I did all 70.3 miles of it this time, and THIS TIME, I got a daggone towel.

Triathlon takes a LOT of time. Not just racing one when you’re slow like me, but training. This was Ryan and Frankie’s race too. They let me disappear for half of every weekend day, they helped me get my bike on four different planes, they spent all day figuring out where I’d be when to cheer me on, and hung out on the esplanade for hours while I struggled away at the last 13 miles. And my coach, who kept me honest and on track and encouraged me the whole way, I couldn’t have done this without them. 

Triathlon IS a team sport, if you do it right.

(So I think in the whole “you forget how bad giving birth is” is because babies are so delightful? I mean, talk to someone who has both given birth AND eaten their first meal the day after a long-course race — this is not a comparison that works out well for babies if that meal is artisanal avocado toast and a Bloody Mary, I’M JUST SAYING.)

Getting older means finding ways to stay humble. Spending your birthday surrounded by one of the seven natural wonders of the world is one; handing a stranger a bag full of your barf is another.

Having that stranger note the heft of the bag and proclaim, “Oh yeah! That’s a good ‘un!” is perhaps, a bonus.

Part of being an adult, is taking charge of your own...not destiny, really, but reverence. Taking charge of how you want to mark an occasion. Turning 40 only happens once, and I wanted to NOTE it.

It is, after all, a pretty big deal. Almost as big as Maggie, the Maori Wrasse.

The way it happened was kind of backward, I picked a race and then checked to see what was around it. The Great Barrier Reef, it was. The idea isn’t to spend the day doing something just for me, it’s to spend it doing something memorable. Plus, as the sixth anniversary of our first date, sorry Ryan — you’re part of the Make It Special Birthday Industrial Complex forever.

Don’t worry, I’ll make the reservations.

I picked Cruise Whitsundays for the trip out to the Reef. They were AWESOME. We did two trips with them, and they were, to a person, outstanding. The trip included the boat ride out to their diving pontoon, a trip a little more than two hours out, access to snorkeling gear and underwater observation windows, and lunch.

(Lunch was outstanding, a million options for different dietary needs. I was sad to see it go...)

I didn’t realize when I was booking the trip, that the Snorkeling Safari I added was a guided affair — that turned out to be so, so excellent. We were the only ones who’d booked one, and we had three kind and enthusiastic girls go out with us. The safari takes you outside the area open for snorkeling all day, and includes information about what you’re seeing.

Awesomely, it also allowed Frankie to hang on to a floatie, with extra pairs of hands to help tow. We’d spent a few weekends training with the snorkel in the pool, getting her comfortable with the breathing and the mask, and between her super-awesome-amazing-completely-unexpected CHILL AND SUCCESS using the mask and being swarmed by fish, we were ALL able to have an outstanding experience.

LOOK AT THIS KID. Head in the water, not freaking out, SNORFELING. (That’s the preferred nomenclature.) She’s five. She’s a daggone BOSS.

What can you say about a life that lets you compare the Great Wall of China and the Great Barrier Reef? It’s more good fortune than a person should have, undoubtedly.

Frankie did the whole safari, and came up blue. June is, after all, winter. She was pretty frozen coming out of the water, and was quite content to ride the semi-submersible submarine for the rest of the afternoon, and can tell you all about the spaghetti coral and the bright blue starfish she saw.

After lunch, Ryan and I traded turns heading back out, to look around some more.

Truthfully, I’m a tiny bit proud of myself for going alone, see earlier: water freaks me out; creatures freak me out; etc. Proud, and so glad. Getting to spy on a whole civilization that’s going on right below the surface, is pretty surreal. Turquoises and purples and shapes of creatures you’ve never imagined, just RIGHT THERE.

Colors zip by, clouds of silvery tiny fish whoosh in unison to unseen threats, and you can’t help but worry — how something that huge can be so delicate and so in danger.

We’ve given up plastic straws and bags and forks and paper towels and juice boxes and disposable produce bags (to the best of our ability, and as often as we can) because Maggie needs a nice place to live.

I mean, look at that face.

As we got ready to leave for the ride back, clouds started to roll in.

I swear on my life, the trip back could have been outtakes from A Perfect Storm. The double-decker ferry boat caught air, over and over. Waves crashed over the second-story windows. I braced myself with every fiber of my being and concentrated.

I have a PhD in avoiding motion sickness. It is, I swear to god, the thing I have spent more time doing other than sleeping my entire life. This trip broke me.

After two hours of trying, finally collapsing alone on a deck chair in the one spot not getting hammered by waves, and JUST as we reached the edge of the storm, I lost the fight.

I mean, get you a girl who can do both.

I’m kind of not sad about it now though, because a) I felt like a million bucks immediately; and b) it made the surprise that was still to come THAT MUCH BETTER.

(Let me note that of the things Frankie does that are the most amazing tricks on the planet, her ability to put herself immediately to sleep and stay that way through any threat of motion sickness is one of the things I’m most grateful for. She’s slept in a tuk-tuk in Thailand, a jitney in Beijing, and this boat. Just conked out on a bench, living her best sleeping life.)

I hate surprises. Part of the other reason I plan my birthdays is because surprises aren’t the FUN. The fun is knowing what’s coming and getting excited for it. So when Ryan said he had a surprise at the end of the day, it went something like this.

“What is it.”

“I have dinner covered.”

“How so?”

“I just DO. Don’t worry about it.”

“Well, now I am worried about it AND I want to know what we’re having so I can look forward to it!”

I think I eventually got the genre out of him, but not the extent of the perfection of his plan.

After a long day, a little physical trauma and a LOT of excitement, he’d arranged to have a whole legitimate Italian feast waiting to be picked up, no waiting, nothing left out. Pizza and bruschetta and sparkling water and anti pasta and ALL THINGS I CAN EAT including dessert, all ready to take back to our apartment.

Let’s just say I was really glad I’d made the extra room.

And really, really, amazingly glad to spend the day with the two people who are willing to share adventures with me.

The waves dipped down and I spotted ahead of me, trying to keep my eye on the buoy that was only visible if I squinted as hard as I could through the dazzle. Then I saw her arm. It wasn’t a stroke, it was her arm up and waving frantically. Oh my god. We were the stragglers, out on the back side of the swim course, a good 300m from shore, and that lady was in trouble.

                                                      ***** Apropos of anything potentially physically treacherous, let’s begin with the disclaimers and get you to sign the waiver. This race was, in some ways, 8000 times better than last year. The aid stations were STOCKED, maybe because this is the first course I’ve done with a full Ironman happening at the same time, but it made such a difference. The bike course was CLOSED and coned-off and felt so much safer, even with the drop-off down to the Coral Sea. And I received a great deal of kindness from the volunteers all the way around.

And the acknowledgment: I am slow. I am not a gifted natural athlete. The only real talent I have, is showing up and not quitting. The internet was very quick to tell me last year, in a dozen different ways, that I shouldn’t have been out on the course at all. That felt pretty horrible.

Honestly, I probably wouldn’t be out on Ironman courses, if they weren’t kind of the only game in town out here. There aren’t locally-run triathlon series, that I’ve been able to find. And only about one out of every ten IM courses has an Olympic distance option, so if I want to train for an event, it ends up being a big one. I’m sorry for that, I guess. I’m sorry to be in the group chasing the time limit. It would be awesome to finish in a time the internet finds respectable, and I will keep working toward it.

Triathlon is a weird sport, another thought that occurred to me in the many, many hours I had to think about such things. Is there another athletic event where the slowpokes are on the same course at the same time as the pros? You’re not going to turn up at the golf course for a tourney and be behind Tiger Woods. It’s weird.

In any event, as I kept moving forward through the last 13.1 miles of the 70.3 I covered that day feeling like an absolute failure, I couldn’t help but notice — there were a lot of people lining the course that didn’t even start, that wouldn’t even consider running in to the ocean on a Sunday morning to swim 2 kilometers. I mean, myself included! That I even went IN that water at all, let alone made it all the way around without absolutely freaking out, is something I couldn’t have fathomed in my first multi-sport race that had a 200 METER swim in a POOL that I didn’t even PUT MY FACE IN THE WATER FOR. I have improved. A lot. I have trained. Or I would still be breaststroking with my head out of the water.

I suppose this is to say, if you are triggered by stories from people who consider getting to the starting line an accomplishment, and who gets to the finish line after the time limit, and spent a lot of time sobbing during the effort, this is not for you.

But to me, that’s a great story. Now, where were we. Oh yes, that lady might be drowning…

                                                     *****

“HELP!” I treaded in a circle, looking for the paddle-boarding rescue teams. I yelled again, “SHE NEEDS HELP!” After what seemed like forever, but was probably about 45 seconds, a paddle board headed over, followed by a raft with an outboard motor. The rescue teams tended to her, and I waited behind, not able to get around or see beyond them.

After a few minutes they cleared, and I struggled on.

The fact that I was here, riding the grey and white waves, that I was putting my face in this water and not screaming, that I was swimming (in a fashion) was nothing short of a miracle that I couldn’t think too carefully about, because THIS IS THE OCEAN AND I’M IN IT.

It was about this moment, that I started to think about other things like, “Huh. I really don’t like swimming. And I really hate the ocean. What am I even doing here?” But I felt okay. Every so often, I would misjudge a wave and get a mouthful of sea, but I felt okay. I had no idea how long I’d been out on the course, the sun was straight at my face and I couldn’t see my watch, so I just kept going.

Let’s talk about oceanography for a moment. All open water is not the same. The Mediterranean Sea by Marseille is inky blue and rough, it rattles your vertigo but lets you pass. The South China Sea by Bintan is pale turquoise and clear, you’re tricked into thinking you could stand up at any moment. The Coral Sea by Cairns is a gray froth and wraps its current around you and straight sucks up any effort you throw at it.

I swam, and swam, and swam and STILL the buoy wouldn’t get closer. “When I make the turn,” I kept telling myself. “They said it would be with the current after the turn, right? Please let that be what they said.” I’m a crap swimmer, I know this. I have no idea how you’re supposed to overpower a current or train for one — all I know is that I didn’t let it beat me, and I didn’t it let it get in my head. I also know — and can say from experience, which blows my mind — this was the hardest swim I’ve done on four continents.

Finally, FINALLY, I got close enough to the shore to stand. The ocean took two or three more swipes, knocking me down as I struggled to stand and run.

“An hour and seven minutes!” said the announcer. “Just under the cutoff!”

Jesus. I’m a crap swimmer, but I did the same distance last time fully 20 minutes faster. I guess I can’t beat a current. What I can do though, is stay alive in the ocean, swimming as hard as I can, for more than an hour.

I trotted up the carpet, and headed for my bike. I was making okay time in T1, trading commiseration with another woman surprised by how hard the swim was, and I was heading out toward the road when a woman in an Ironman shirt approached me.

“Just so you know,” she started gently, “You’re a DNF at this point. You can go on if you’d like, you have loads of time.”

“What?! The man said! I was an hour and seven minutes!” I was already hysterical by the end of this sentence. I’d managed to look at my watch when I’d gotten out, by my watch I was under, too. I’d gone all the way through T1 thinking I was okay.

“Oh? I’m so sorry, maybe I’ve gotten it wrong then!”

“He said!” I wailed, “He said I was okay!”

It’s at this point, I’d broken a PR. Time to Inconsolable Scream-Crying: nailed after the first event. It’s an awful feeling, to be told you’ve busted your whole race, all that training, all that effort to even GET to the starting line, all of that stress and fear even facing the ocean, to be told you’ve failed from the beginning.

She tried to offer me water, she was understandably horrified at my reaction.

“Can I go?”

I headed miserably for the mount line and got on my bike. It took me five miles to stop crying.

Officially, when I went back and look at my times after the race, she wasn’t wrong.

Swim: 1:10:01

A second over. Does that time show the two minutes I spent waiting for the rescue boat to clear? Nah. All it shows is that I shouldn’t have been that close to the deadline at all. And it shows that I DNFed after the first event.

T1: 8:34

Also, forever. But what the split doesn’t show, is three full minutes of heartbreak. I really don’t know how you train to get over that faster.

Hi, welcome. My name is Zoë Stagg and I’m the world’s slowest Cryathlete.

“There’s something weird on my tummy.”

I turned around from where I was sitting in the front seat and looked. Frankie had her shirt up, and was scratching at a black dot on her stomach. We were sitting at a gas pump, about ten minutes from the airport. Ryan came back to the car.

“Will you look at what she’s talking about?”

“Uhhhh. That’s a tick.” NOPE NOPE WHAT HARD NOPE.

“Right,” Because the terrorists want you to have bad eyebrows AND nothing to do roadside surgery with, “Can you go see if the gas station man has tweezers?”

Adventure, isn’t always pretty. He didn’t have any, but he did have the amazing tip that the next building over was a chemist. Frankie and Ryan and Frankie’s uninvited guest hightailed it over, returning in a few minutes with a box of “Tick Be-Gone.” Ryan laid her down on the back seat and blasted. When it didn’t “brush away” as advertised, I went in and grabbed its backside between my fingernails and gently pulled. It was like time and space went slo-mo and I could see it scraping its way out. It felt WEIRD.

The lovely gas station man came over to see how we were getting on. I triumphantly presented the corpse of the creature.

“You’ve been up on the tablelands, then?” He took a photo of it and zoomed in. “Yep, looks like you got him!”

I had no idea these “hims” were even a thing to worry about. We had been rash-guarded against stingers, carried umbrellas to ward off cassowaries, but nobody said, “Right mate, there’s a whole class of paralytic ticks up there in the rainforest.” I’M AN IDIOT but also NOBODY SAID.

We thanked our local first-responder, and made our next stop the Family Bathroom at the airport to frantically check the rest of us. Later, in the car safe on the ground on the other side…

“So what was the MOST alluring part of today—checking each other’s behinds for ticks, or shoving McDonald’s into our faces in the dark like animals?”

Travel is for romantics.

SO MANY things went right on this trip. Beyond amazingly, top ten experiences ever, RIGHT. But it’s the harrowing that somehow stand out in sharp relief. The four hours of white-knuckled fighting to keep my lunch where it was before the sea demanded that it was going to win; sobbing from a five-hour fight against a current and headwind I was not ready for, facing another 21kms of effort; and the shriek from behind me as I knelt, crippled in grief on a rock in a river in the middle of nowhere, Queensland.

It’s become Frankie’s favorite story to tell, her terror and my worst nightmare turned into the greatest fish tale of all time.

I don’t even know if I’m ready to tell it—I still don’t know how it happened. In one moment I was taking a picture of all of us in the dappled light on a rock in the rainforest, and the next moment my phone was in the air, and the next, horrifyingly like time stood still, in the river. Gone. Sunk. Completely out of sight.

Yes, it’s just a phone. BUT it’s MY CAMERA. All the images I’d taken, the videos of Frankie talking about the animals she was seeing, the pictures of Ryan and Frankie I’d snapped as they walked ahead of me, the WAY I EXPERIENCE THE WORLD and THIS TRIP was GONE.

I don’t care about the thing itself, that’s just a thing. But as it sunk in what had just happened, I dropped to my knees and howled.

“No. No no no no no NO NO PLEASE NO.”

Yes it’s a thing and not a person, and part of my brain started trying to apply perspective, to tell myself it was just images and the memories were still there, but my body could only stare in shock and grief at the watery, murky crevice that had swallowed my art and my heart.

Snapping turtles lazed by, surfacing from below. The tiniest part of me thought maybe one of them could DO ME A DAGGONE SOLID for the truckload of turtle food we’d showered them with and haul my phone up. There was a convenient ring on it and everything. While I wallowed, Ryan started thinking.

I’d already plunged our protective umbrella into the water, and there was no bottom. It seemed to go to the center of the earth. Ryan got a thinner stick and started probing. I was counting the minutes it had been submerged and ticking away hope with every second, and then a shriek ripped through the canopy of leaves.

Frankie had been on the bank of the river during the commotion, and told to keep an eye out for danger. She turned around to scout, and through the leaves crunched BOTH cassowaries. The giant creatures stood a full foot taller than her and suddenly there was no us between her and them. Later, she will tell the story full of delighted bravado, “O-M-G-Y-A,” We have not been able to pin down the meaning of the extra letters, other than that they sound cool when you’re five-teen, “I had a TOTAL panic attack! The dinosaur birds were RIGHT THERE.”

The whole scene would not be out of place in a vacation disaster romp where Amy Schumer and Adam Sandler get in over their heads in an exotic locale.

I took my mourning to the river bank, manning the umbrella to protect my brood, while Ryan remained upside down trying to save the day.

“If you’re just trying to bring up the corpse, it’s not worth it.”

He put the long stick in the opaque water again, drew it out and measured it against his arm.

I turned to watch Frankie and the birds again, and glanced back a moment later to see-

HIM PULL MY PHONE OUT OF THE WATER. My camera, my memories, my IMAGES. He bounded back to the bank, and we all simultaneously collapsed and bumbled through the underbrush, trying to get as far from the trauma as possible.

“Maybe I can get the images off onto the stick even if the screen is dead,” Ryan said as he started to squeeze water out of it.

Suddenly, the screen lit up.

“IT WORKS.”

Oh my god, it works. Hope started to seep into the places grief had carved. It works. I have all of the photos and videos, I have everything backed up, and I have a hero. I don’t know how he found it, I don’t know how he saved the day, but he did. And he always does.

There will be more, I have the most of all to say about the most beautiful and easy parts of the trip. This is not a post complaining about what went wrong, not in the slightest. This is a post saying how it almost doesn’t matter what the picturesque parts were, it’s these outtakes that made it. That made US.

“Are those Froot Loops? They look different here!”

Plus, a real Kangaroo Crossing sign, Tim Tams in the wild, Vegemite and crumpets procured, toilet-flushing-direction duly observed, a plane ride with THE ENTIRE NORTH QUEENSLAND COWBOYS RUGBY TEAM, and our cultural primer seems “No worries, mate!”

They really say it, and it’s kind of a palpable sentiment. Instead of rushing and making yourself small as a way of not inconveniencing others, you bestow upon others a little Down Under Chill to provide the same generosity of community. It’s different and nice.

At least, that’s how it seems in the first 24 hours, a good chunk of which were in a red-eyed haze. And Frankie keeps asking if people are speaking English.

Why are all my posts about this now? Because I feel like that’s 100% all I do, and—here’s the beauty of the sport—somehow it still doesn’t feel like I’m doing enough. This season, I hedged my bets though. I signed up for a race I knew I could finish: a teeny-tiny 200m swim/10k bike/3k run.

That way, if everything goes pear-shaped Down Under, I will have one moment of redemption for this whole thing.

I know I’m training for a long-course race right now, but as such I think I’ve realized things: a) Maybe they picked the Olympic distance as the gold standard for a reason, and b) sprints are so fun and you don’t have to try to eat anything while you’re also working out.

The Camp Zama Sprint Triathlon is the loveliest, and if you’re 45 minutes early giving your competition hairy eyeballs in the parking lot, you will also be the first one signed in and subsequently bib #0. (And sub-subsequently be at work on Monday with the vestiges of marker all over you.

The race course was loops on the bike, which made me think about the first one I ever did back in 2014—I’m pretty sure for that one, I had an entire outfit for each sport. This time, I wore my trisuit to the race, and was reasonably sure I had all of my shoes.

It was a pool swim, but in a 25m pool which suddenly seems SO short when you’re not used to it. They started people every 60 seconds, and I’m going to blame dipping under the lane markers as we zigzagged across as the reason I got passed by the two guys behind me. 


Sure, that’s it. 


I came out of the pool and lit over to my bike, putting on sleeves because it’s not THAT warm that riding all wet is comfortable, and took off. I was pushing it, because yes sure you should always try your best, but mostly because there were TROPHIES on the table. There were TROPHIES on the table and there were only four women total in this race. I wanted one real bad. 


I was pulling 17-18mph on the bike, nothing to actual triathletes, but 2-3mph above where I do my long rides, and I watched the competition as we circled the loop. I kind of didn’t want to run, but I knew that it was basically just going to be my usual Wednesday mini-brick, so I ditched my bike and trotted off. After the last turn, I saw the closest woman to me and noticed the number on her leg—#6—she was not six minutes behind me. 


Sad face because I’m a terrible sport when there is something TO WIN. I finished to the greatest cheering committee—another reason sprints are fun, you get to pass your support crew more often—and clapped as the other people finished. Small races are the serious best, we all took a group photo and then they handed out the awards. 

And OMG you guys, I GOT ONE! Second place!!! Let’s not compare that it was 20 full minutes behind the winning dude, I was only three minutes off women’s first, which if you do complicated enough math, is like barely anything.

In any event, it was a fun diversion in super-long brick season whereby the answer to “What are you doing this weekend?” is “riding my bike.” Mileage-wise, I’m way up over April last year, BUT my month-before-race mileage last year was 318, so I’ve got some work to do this month...

I’ve got a Yamathon, a half marathon race, and basically I’m booked until we go to Australia. Except for shopping time. DID YOU KNOW that you can CHOOSE YOUR OWN TEAM COLORS on prepsportswear.com? So EVEN IF Stagg High School is orange and blue really, you can CHANGE IT.

If two makes a trend — which we all know it doesn’t, putting additional pressure on next year — then I have started a “spend my birthday somewhere Great” thing. Last year was the Great Wall, this year is the Great Barrier Reef.

(I guess next year we either go to the Great Lakes or get a Great Dane.)

I can’t claim entire responsibility, Frankie was promised* when we first started reading Possum Magic that when she was five, we would go to Australia. Well, she’s five, and she has a memory like a shark cage.

But with great adventure comes an equal ratio of planning. The bigger the adventure, the more moving parts. And so, I’m deep in research and confirmation numbers. I have a pretty good itinerary for two weeks, which includes a Pinterest-inspired extra stop, which I didn’t even realize had deep literary ties.

You guys. All one of you besides my Mom. WE’RE GOING TO MEGGIE’S ISLAND.

Now, it seems like that actual island is imaginary, and researching while staying as far away from the mini-series screengrabs as possible is HARD (the TV version is not even the same universe) but this is the true part — she went to the Whitsundays and so are we.

We already have to be in Cairns for my race, and I want to snorkel the Reef for my 40th, and anyway research collided. The Whitsundays. It’s going to take us an overnight flight and a hopper and a drive to get there, but we’re going.

Staying: Azure Sea Airlie Beach Resort

I know a wide-angle lens and a bumped up exposure and saturation when I see it, but there’s a pool and walking distance to a grocery store and a view of the water, so I picked it. Fingers crossed. Most of the places to stay in Queensland were apartment layouts — not complaining, it will be nice to have more space than a hotel room for three people for two weeks.

Doing: Cuddling Koalas at Wild Life Hamilton Island.

Everything I picked, I tried my best to get an Eco-rating, and I hope this...is okay.

Snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef with Cruise Whitsundays.

I booked a day on a boat and we’re starting Frankie learning the snorkel tube and flippers now.

And exploring the Airlie Beach area. I left a couple of days for beach and beach.

Then we head back to Cairns, because of that whole “trying to do a Half-Ironman in the middle of a giant trip” thing.

The good news is that yesterday’s brick felt kind of okay! Running off the bike more on short rides during the week, made running after a long ride feel okay! Gah, who knows. I’m looking very skeptically at the swim pictures I can find and they look way more oceany than last year. ANYWAY.

Staying: Pullman Palm Cove Resort.

Picked for the pool for Frankie, and the spa/massage situation for Ryan, it’s an apartment layout too.

Doing: That race thing, trying not to die.

AND THEN. AND THEN. The pièce de résistance of my entire planning thing.

We’re leaving Cairns a couple of days after the race and going to stay in TREEHOUSES IN THE RAINFOREST.

A) Totally closed in, non-camping treehouse cabins; and B) they have promised possums. POSSUM MAGIC.

Staying: The Canopy Treehouses and Wildlife Sanctuary.

You guys they have a wallaby named Millie who lives inside?! 

Doing: Trying our very best to sit quietly and know the correct ID of every creature we come across, using our David Attenborough curriculum. Last night we watched him eat some kind of sugar ant and it dripped down his chin and I had to leave the room.

This is going to be an ADVENTURE.