One-O-One...point oh six???

(Disclaimer: This is my mildly goofy, silly, rant…don’t take it too seriously…I think the race is funny…distance-wise… and therefore feel the need to pick on it. That's just me)

101.06…apparently this is the new distance that is: “Taking the Triathlon scene by storm”. Maybe it’s just me…but the triathlon sky is pretty clear, no storming here…um…not seeing people gush over this ‘new’ distance: 1.86 mile swim, 80.6 mile bike, and 18.6 mile run. Personally it is sorta bizarre distance if you ask me, but so far from what I've read (which isn't much) no one else shares my sentiment…so now I’m blogging about it ;-) Maybe this new distance is hot topic everywhere else in cyber-tri-space...I generally live in my own little world. It's nice...fluffy couches...crazy cats...oh typing on blog...oops...err...focus...come'on...focus.

This new tri-distance is being called One-O-One…as in one hundred and one miles but in reality it should be called: One-O-One point oh-six.

The problem I am having is that six-hundredth of a mile part seems sorta silly anyway to include in the tri if you are just going to call it One-O-One at the end of the day. Why not just cut out 0.06 from the 1.86 mile swim?

My thought is that they decided not to cut the 0.06 miles out… because then it doesn’t come out roundly on the ‘metric’ side of things. The race is 3K, 130K, 18K totaling…

Whaaa laaa:One hundred and fifty one kilometers.

An Ironman is 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run and as many are aware totals: 140.6 miles…which means it is 3.86 Km swim, 180.2 Km bike and 42.2 Km run. Which is 226.26 kilometers…lots of decimal places and no nice round numbers at all, metric or imperial.

First of all, I guess I find it sorta funny…silly and a bit weird to call a name of a tri something like one-o-one…yet it isn’t really one hundred and one miles. We should call it one-o-one point oh-six if we are going to call it by it’s mileage. I mean…for starters…we don’t generally refer to tri’s by their mileage anyway.

“I’m racing in a 140.6 mile tri this weekend” or a “This weekend is the big 51.1Km tri.” or a “You training for that 70.3 mile tri in the summer?” No…it's just not how triathletes refer to their races…it’s an ironman, an international, a ½ ironman, bla, bla,bla…or something like that. You might have a little sticker on your car that has the mileage…but in common tri-geek discussion tri's are not generally referred to by their mileage.

And here is my mini rant about rounding out the metric side of things to be all nice and round numbers...

(Disclaimer: I love metric…I have nothing against metric…I wish the US used metric…I use metric all the time as I do science all the time…I’ve lived places where they use metric (and loved it)...but I’m all for JUST metric in things…I’m SO against this weird mixture of metric/imperial and other stuff...mixing = bad…just think Mars probe crash…if you do science it should be metric…and well…I think the rest of life should be metric too. I’m a weird-o…I am already aware of this…OK...moving on now)

So…now that I have cleared the air as far as my personal position on my love of metric…here’s the thing:

Here in the good’ ol US of A…we don’t use metric. Fact. It's a big Ugly fact…but fact.

And well…the plain fact of the matter is they are advertising it as one hundred and one miles. SO WHY OH WHY do they add the stuuuuuupid point oh-six miles ONLY so that the metric comes out even. WHY can’t the MILES come out even to 101????? If you are going to call it that…then the MILES should be the even bits…not the Kilometers!! Well…unless…the race originated somewhere metric….BUT EVEN THEN we should call it One-fifty-one.

Whew…where did that come from?

OK, I admit it… I like things that are rounded out it's cleaner somehow and I also like things to be what they are advertised. They are advertising a triathlon that is 101 miles…and that’s its name…therefore I would assume such mileage. NOOOO point oh-six

And you know that point oh-six mile of the swim really…would…be...the killer part of the whole race. Maybe while they are at it they can add in the run to transistion from the swim :-)

hahahahhahahaha

One-O-One point oh six...so...who's going to get that sticker?? I do hope you'll get it with the point oh six on it.