Trade Day

So I've been in the cellar of my hockey pool for the last couple of months. I wasn't doing too badly at the start, I was holding my own around 7th or 8th place (out of 18 teams) That lasted about a month. And for about 6 weeks straight I had 5 (fairly seriously) injured players - one guy was hurt in the first game, the day of the draft... Since we don't have substitutions, if one guy gets hurt, it kinda sucks, if three get injured things aren't looking good, but with 5 injuries, you're S.O.L. I've slowly been climbing back - Markov has scored at least a point in every game he's been in since coming back.

So Trade Day was earlier this week. As the person in last place, I got to pick up the undrafted player with the most points (Plekanec) though sadly I don't get the points he'd scored to date - that would have made things way more interesting, IMHO. I also ditched one player who was performing so badly that it angered me just to see his name on my roster. I had to trade him. For my sanity. The trades would take effect the next day, but wouldn't you know it - that night, my team scored enough points to move me out of last place. It is all about pride after all.

Speaking of pride - gauntlets have been thrown. Apparently my team needs to step it up for the triathlon. There are a few other teams from my department that enter and last year one group got 3rd place. So yesterday, one of my co-worker teammates came in to find that someone had taken the 3rd place medal out of one office and put it on her desk. Overnight. and her office was locked. We have no idea who or how. Not that we're a threat. We're more interested in just finishing the race, let alone worrying about how well we do.

What have I gotten myself into?!?!?

During a few work parties and some glasses of wine, I agreed to participate in a triathlon. A. Triathlon. Yeah.

It's actually not quite as bad as it sounds. It's a team-relay, so I'll only have to do on leg of the race - the cycling. And it's a sprint distance, so 17.5 km. But as with all those things we agree to in those moments, you're never quite sure how serious people are - if everyone says "I'll do it if you'll do it," will you actually do it? First day back at work, we signed up.

So on a (hopefully) mild April afternoon, I will be triathloning. I figured I should hit the gym and see how long it might take one to pedal 17.5 km, or if one could do it at all for that matter. The result wasn't terrible, but wasn't great either. I definitely have something to work towards over the next 3 months...