The 2004 Palawan Peace Corps and Friends (that's me) First Annual Triathlon

a burnt, unlabled CD arrived for me in the mail today. but i knew exactly what it was... a copy of the digital footage from the triathlon i did as a Fulbright in Palawan. absof*cking-lutely hilarious!

keep in mind this isn't any big official sporting event. this is just 5 peace corps volutneers, a filipino, a canadian grad student, and yours truly getting together one day and deciding to organize for ourselves a sprint triathlon. also, FYI, a "sprint" triathlon means 1km swim, 25km bike ride, and 5 km run... by no means does it mean that ur actually *sprinting* the entire time... if anything, it's more like constant wheezing. in case ya'll are wondering... i came in 7th out of 8th in just under two hours... pretty good considering my smoking habit was peaking around this time. but then again, most of the racers were smokers... oh well...

anyway, i guess the most amusing part about all of this is that it is testament to how laid back life was like in the philippines. i mean, can u imagine urselves here in the states, with all your busy schedules, just deciding to organize a triathlon... just for kicks? sigh... the philippines is like a passed life of mine... a life where if u had more than one errand to do a day... u were busy! if u had to go to the bank to withdraw money, u were fine. but if u had to go to the bank AND go grocery shopping... u were just damn busy! think about it... we decided, for no reason at all, to put ourselves through this athletic torture. no charitable cause... no prize... it was just an excuse to spend one month training such that we could drink ourselves silly once everything was over! that's what life should be all about: good, clean, free, healthy fun... followed by drinking...

one more thing... the coolest part of the footage was watching me biking down a dirt road, dodging chickens and being chased by stray dogs. good incentive to paddle harder! ahhhhhhhhh!!!!!