One of my earliest memories was being 6 years old, at swim practice, and watching the head coach launch a folding chair into the pool because one of the older swimmers was pulling on the lane rope during a backstroke set. At that moment, I, Laura C. Helen Tingle, vowed to never EVER pull on the lane rope during backstroke.
I stuck to that vow for the next 15 years of competetive swimming. Until I finished my college swimming career, and began my life as a triathlete, I never cheated during a swim workout. At some point I became, um, hmm, lazy, for lack of a better word. I went from swimming 4000 meters of butterfly a day to zero meters of fly a year. With the exception of the occasional swim off with Gordo, or Matty Reed. At which point, if I am not winning, I will literally pretend to drown. Seriously.
For the last 5 years, my swimming repertoire has consisted of two strokes: freestyle, and lane rope pull on my back.
So, I am at a masters swim practice yesterday, and this happened:
Jane (the coach): 10 x 200
LT (that’s me): I.M.? (kidding, of course)
Jane: yes
LT: huh?
Whitney (my lane mate): yes
LT: huh?
Whitney: yes
LT (apparently pretending to be deaf): huh?
Jane: YES

And so it was. 10 x 200 IM.
I think it is important to occasionally take inventory in life. My health is good. My head is good. My personal life is good..ish. For the life of me I could not come up with an excuse for faking drowning. I have learned, if nothing is holding you back, than start sprinting forward. I swam my butterfly with all of my arms (2), instead of cheating with one arm. I didn’t pull on the lane rope at all, and with a little encouragement from my lane mates, we got the work done.
So I guess all of this is to say, if you don’t have a valid reason to pretend to die during your workout today, go a little nuts, go a little “too hard,” try something new, or something old, or even try something scary.

I like to make at least one out of every 20 blog posts somewhat serious. Bare with me. I am sure my next 19 posts will be filled with stories of squashing prairie dogs with my mountain bike, and big horned sheep trying to bite my face.
I have been with Timex since the end of my first season of the sport of triathlon. When I got the call that I was on the team, I was absolutely speechless. And honored. Not because I had acheived something great and was being rewarded for it. In the world of professional triathlon, I hadn’t scratched the surface yet. I was honored because an absolute stranger was putting his faith in my potential.
My first race on the Timex team was Ironman Arizona. I got to the race site and found the mechanic, Doug, working on a bike at the team truck. “Excuse me,” I squeaked. No response. “Um, sir, excuse me.” Still no answer. Maybe he is hard of hearing. “EXCUSE ME!” He turned, and said “shhhh, I am listening to the bike.”
Doug swears he doesn’t remember it, but I will never forget it for as long as I live. From that day grew a friendship, followed by familyship (sometimes I make up words, work with me here). What is the difference between a sponsor and family? They love you just as much on your worse days as they do on your best days. I have had a lifetime’s worth of bad days in the last 3 years. But still, every time I look around, they are still there, just as supportive as they were on the first day they decided to sponsor me. I can’t quit on this sport as long as they haven’t quit on me. And I love them for that.
That being said, I am pretty stoked for 2011. I am excited about my stable health, my stable head, and my game plan. I hope every race is a good one, not for me- but for the guys at Timex. I can’t think of a better way to thank my family.

I am not sure if I have more bizarre animal encounters than other people, or if I am just more likely to talk about it. Anway, the last two weeks have been more animal-ey (why yes, they did teach me that word in Journalism school) than usual.
It all started a few weeks ago when I was riding my bike down a canyon, probably in the 40ish mph range, when I hit a bird with my face. Yes, my face. It was disgusting. I didnt even realize what happened until the wing was in my mouth. As a previous vegetarian (for 18 years) this was not okay with me. I was absolutely traumatized, and am still not sure how I didnt fall off my bike backwards, despite the fact I was descending.
The next week I was riding up past Jamestown (same canyon) when I saw what I thought was an albino devil goat with a beard. The thing was fugly plus a little more ugly. As I rode past, it pointed its head down, with its big devil horns pointed right at me. YIKES! I had a hard time describing the encounter to my lane mates at the pool that day, but I think I convinced them that I had seen a majestically white ram (?!) The next day, as I told my friend Brookie Cookie (not her real name….did you think it was?!) anyway, I told Brooke what I saw and she informed me that it was a big horn sheep. They are fairly common in that area. I liked it better when it was an albino devil goat….
This leads me to today. I had a fairly busy day of run, swim, coffee date, work, strategic planning with JD and Bob (his cat), and then a bike ride. I rode up the right side of the canyon, and then up the left side, and then over the backside. I was riding down the backside of Lee Hill, a pretty screaming descent, minding my own business, when I saw a bear running up towards me. I froze. I had zero options at the moment. I could keep descending and ride right into it, or turn around and go 6 mph back up the canyon. What to do…What to do….I have a life motto. I have always lived by the words “if you dont know what to do, do nothing.” The jury is still out on this motto, but until I replace it with something better, it is how I operate. So I did nothing. And watched it charge in my direction. Just than a car came around me, and slammed on its brakes. At that point the car was in between me and the monster. After what felt like an eternity, but was probably 5 seconds, it walked in front of the car, and down the other side of the canyon to the creek.
I flew down the canyon in a blur of emotions, stopped at the first intersection in Boulder…and threw up. I cant really explain that part of the story. But that is what happened. I rode through town, shaking and hyperventilating, got home, took off my shoes, called my dad, and told him “no…I am sorry…I didnt have a chance to take a picture of the bear.” I will have to keep that in mind the next time.

I did my first ever open water swim race last week. It was a disaster…
I thought I would illustrate my disaster in poem form. Enjoy!

I was very excited for the Bare Bones Swim Race,
Denny was there, I was going to swim off his face,
So when it came time to take our place,
I stood directly in front of his personal space.

The starter was counting from ten to one,
But I left on two, right before the gun,
I thought I had the swim race won,
When in reality, the battle had just begun.

I spun my arms and kicked my feet,
The whole time thinking it would be sweet,
to laugh when Denny finished in defeat,
because my false start was too hard to beat.

It wasn’t until 250 meters was swum,
that I realized what I had done,
I sprinted to the second buoy after the gun,
While the whole field swam around the first one.

Then a kayaker came over my way,
and pointed a paddle and went on to say,
“Hey pink cap girl, you went the wrong way!”
Karma will always make you pay.

At least when Denny finished the race,
he had some kindness, and a lil grace,
to wait while I finished in 60th place,
so he could announce he swam off my face.

My last post was the morning we were headed out to Memphis in May, so I will pick up where I left off. We got into Nashville (flights there were a third the price of flights to Memphis) to find that our bikes were stuck in Chicago. Which was odd considering we had a direct flight from Denver. Airlines are funny….and not funny “haha.” So we had lunch at Trader Joes, and then swam at the Tracy Caulkins Natatorium, my kind of day. The whole time I was swimming, I had a feeling of “I have been here before.” The next day I called my dad and he reminded me that I raced there when I was 10. Oh geez, at this rate, I am never going to get to my Memphis in May race report. That is okay, the race can be summed up as, “I swam on Blake Beckers feet, and then rode my bike better than last year, which wasnt hard considering I crashed my bike in the hotel parking lot the day before the race last year, but that probably didnt matter because I was riding my bike like a donkey in 2009 anyway, and then we got out on the run and everyone was doing the skeleton dance because it was a million degrees, and I finished 4th pro woman which wasnt really good or bad. The end.” On to more important things, I did not pee from before the race Sunday morning until 4 pm on Monday. That is how hot it was. That is VERY hot. Despite the hot, the fellas I traveled with all had great races. Blake finished 4th in the pro men, Justin was 6th and had the fastest run split, and Denny was one of the top age group men.
This past week, I mentioned for the 1,235th time to my parents that I would like to be the mayor of Louisville in 2035. My mother thought it would be a good idea if I became more involved in the community, so she signed me up for the inagural Louisville Half Marathon. Her, my dad, and the mother of my god baby, Erin, ran the 5k. It was a pretty fun day on a super hard course. Most of the course was gravel trail, which is good for making a fast recovery, but bad for running a smoking time. I was the first woman to finish, which means I have the course record! It probably doesnt count when it is a first year race…but..I am claiming it, haha. After the race, I was schooled on the mountain bike by my dad, some things never change. I ended the day with going to see Robin Hood (which totally made me want a bow and arrow, like, seriously. Seriously) and eating mexican food with some of my favorite friends. Things are going well.