Not me! If I know there is a fast wave behind me, I sort of keep an eye out and get out of the way for the leaders, especially if near a buoy. My swim time isn't going to be that fast anyway so I'd rather not slow others down.

---

Pete Githens
Reading, PA

are you a wymyn?

Thank you! Shame not all the men are like you! My swim time would be faster if they were! ;)

As someone who (used to) get tangled up with the very lead women from the wave behind at the end of the swim, I never even saw them coming. So any contact was purely incidental, much in the same way if someone in the pack you're swimming in (or you) drifts off-line and gets whalloped by his/her neighbors by running into the other person's stroke. I got faster to avoid this issue. :)

I think you're assuming a certain amount of maliciousness that isn't there AT ALL, just incidental contact and part of racing--especially when you swim straight through the back/middle of the pack in front of you (who are going to be all over the place). They should, in no way, feel any obligation to get out of your way (voluntarily, sure, but they're racing too!).

---

The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

Okay - but I'm also guilty of the opposite. If I see a guy out riding, and I'm feeling pretty good.... you beat your arse I'm going to try and fly by. Because I'm a girl that's gonna pass a guy :)

On the list of turn-offs - has anyone brought up tobacco use. Or is that a given?

Tobacco use is SO DISGUSTING!!!!!!! I can't stand to be near people who smoke or chew because the smell is so bad. There are VERY few who can cover the smell enough to be bearable

I had an "incident" at work with a smoker.

There is a parking garage facing the build where I work. I park in it every workday and walk the same sidewalk to work. Along with a couple hundred other people. Not much changes in that walk except the weather.

I was walking down the stairs in the garage one day and a smoker was in front of me. Ugh, blowback. Then he tosses his cigarette on the ground and keeps walking. I stopped in my tracks. Then I said, "Are you kidding me? Are you really going to leave that there?" I don't know what got into me that particular day but a switch was flipped. I kept giving him a hard time about it as we walked down the stairs. I didn't swear at him, I didn't call him names, I didn't yell but I did tell him it was rude and he had no excuse for making someone clean up after him.

Every morning the guy comes to work, he goes into the same building. In front of the building is an ashtray. It has been there as long as I've worked here, two years.

As he get to the front of the building I breeze past and say "Here is an ashtray for next time you want to throw away your cigarette butt. Use it instead of the ground." There were about 5 other people in front of the building.

I was a pack a day smoker for 10 years. I stopped throwing butts on the ground when I was 19 or 20.

In case anyone jumps on me for this, I would have said the same thing to someone who intentionally threw trash on the ground in sight of a trashcan. There was an extra sense of arrogance and entitlement with this guy that really set me off.

So yeah, smoking is a huge turn-off.

---

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce

Well thanks for your honest evaluation of my post. I never called noxious a sexist person at present (on purpose), but that his story was alarmingly sexist, and I realize he noticed this. The red flag for me was the reductive attitude toward his socialization and present attitude toward getting beaten by women. "Haha, it's so funny that I was raised to think girls were inferior, and it comes out every time I see a ponytail; it's not my fault, heh!!" That's how I read it. I wish I had read it like everyone else did, i.e., SO hilarious and cute, but I didn't. Sorry. Sorry noxious.

I've had my ass handed to me by womens for longer than I can remember.

When I was in highschool I used to work out at this gym where a lot of the Hamilton Tiger Cats (Canadian Football League) also used to train. There were a lot of meatheads and the sort of fully made up women that "go shopping" at the gym, but also a lot of serious people working out hard as well. I was doing some sort of asinine pyramid set "to failure" - without a spotter, and failure came sooner than I anticipated. So I was stuck, lying on a bench with a not very heavy bar on my chest, unable to move. I couldn't even roll the motherfucker off, I had done such a good job. :p Finally, one of the women walked by and I managed to catch here eye. "Uhhhh - help?" She smiled, lifted the bar off me (with one arm) and put it down beside me. And I'm pretty sure she didn't tell anyone as no-one ever gave me any grief about it.

---

<If you're gonna be dumb, you gotta be tough>
Get Fitter!
Proud member of the Smartasscrew, MONSTER CLUB
Get your FIX today?

 
I think you're assuming a certain amount of maliciousness that isn't there AT ALL, just incidental contact and part of racing--especially when you swim straight through the back/middle of the pack in front of you (who are going to be all over the place). They should, in no way, feel any obligation to get out of your way (voluntarily, sure, but they're racing too!).

You can think that if you like but I've not suggested there is anything malicious about it at all. None one has so I'm not sure where you got that idea from. I'm left wondering if you've read any of the comments on this thread with such a reply. You do get what we're discussing, right? You've also managed to mansplain in the same sentence to boot. There's contact and it's all part of race? They're not obligated to get out of my way? Thanks for letting me know. I wouldn't have known otherwise... Sorry if this comment sounds snide but cripes, of all threads to make such comments.

JewSW, I applaud your reaction to the smoker. I wish more folks said something instead of muttering under their breath because then perhaps there wouldn't be butts all over the place.

npda, I'll be honest, I didn't see the post as cute. I was just surprised at your reply because while I agree with many of your points, it was how it was worded that made me comment. (I say this knowing my reply to Derf above is snarky but I've sat on it for two days now and that's really the nicest way I can reply to it.)

Khai, thanks for that story! I've been the chick whose helped guys get bars off their chests a few times. Always a little sheepish smile from them but you know what, I respect those guys a hell of a lot more for it.


And yes, people shopping at the gym... I do not get the chicks in the dressing room who put on their war paint before a workout! Just like I don't get the peacocks in the mirror who puff up and check to see if anyone is watching them.

No need to apologize, this is a public forum and everyone's opinion is valuable. In all honestly I am not a sexist person at all, the group I train with out of Boulder Colorado (might be considered rural by some) is made up of 3 pro women, 3 elite age group women, 2 pro men, and 2 age group men (I am one of the AGers). I am slower in most disciplines when compared to the 6 women in the group I train with and slightly faster in a couple on a very good day, we have a lot of fun training together and there is a lot of healthy competition within the group. Not once has the sex of the athlete been an issue in our group, and I have never felt bad when being beat/passed by a girl, I simply look at them as amazing athletes that are fitter and faster than me.

I have been involved in endurance sports for most of my life and I rarely see sexism in the sports as anyone who participates regularly knows that the sex of the athlete next to you is irreverent. I know we are only a few years apart and it sounds like you played coed sports which I unfortunately did not. I do believe children would benefit from participating in coed sports and parents should consider this when signing their children up for sports. Sports in our society will always promote sexist behavior (probably unintentionally) especially at the professional levels, just look where all the money is and what sports are broadcast on network TV that our children are watching. It is an unpleasant truth that the majority of sports viewed by the general public are professional men's team sports.

Like I said before, my earlier post was typed out in fun and not intended to be taken so seriously, and the pony tail was in reference to the OP. Hopefully there is no ill will between the two of us:)

Please reread you own complaints about men seeing pink caps coming and going into full flail mode to try and crush you as you come through (sounds like malicious to me)--then poking at Mr. October that he is the model man for being overly courteous to waves behind him by deviating his path to allow the women through. I don't think I made a huge logical jump, because it sounded a lot like ignorant pissing and moaning. And entitlement as a faster swimmer. I don't know about you but that sounds a whole lot different than guys completely turning themselves inside out to keep up with women (which is pretty hilarious).

If you don't see the difference, then feel free to be as snarky as hell. I find your nastiness unwarranted, although not surprising.

---

The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

OK everyone, separate corners. It doesn't seem like anything is being accomplished by turning this into a LR style debate on what someone did or didn't imply in their post.

---

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Jen

"In order to keep a true perspective on one's importance, everyone should have a dog that worships him and a cat that will ignore him." - Dereke Bruce

Yeah, I apologize... I escalated things unnecessarily.

Carry on with the poking fun at all hilarious things guys do. (Many of which I'm/have been guilty of at one point or another)

:)

---

The question of who is right and who is wrong has seemed to me always too small to be worth a moment's thought, while the question of what is right and what is wrong has seemed all-important.

-Albert J. Nock

If I wax my ass before I wear white lycra but I smoke, do those cancel themselves out?

---

---

When someone pulls laws out of their @$$, all we end up with are laws that smell like sh!t. -Skippy

Your 'to-do' list is interesting and i bet there's more

Well, you see, you womens are hard to please! In reading this thread I have tried to reinvent myself into a whole new me. I put the Porsche up for sale and gave the Rolex away. Since some of you seem to hate manicured men and others prefer it: I have shaved the left hand side of my body and clipped my nails short on the right. I had to get rid of the boat shoes so now I have bruises for slipping on the deck on the yacht, but I can't wear tall socks to cover it up! I'm sitting here in tighty whities and a poncho because I can't wear my standard apron and plaid boxers... What am I to do?!?!

---

---

When someone pulls laws out of their @$$, all we end up with are laws that smell like sh!t. -Skippy

I had a girl challenge me to race her in a local 5k, and she beat me, while wearing a pink tutu. I ran a 19:04 to her 18:19. Nothing like hitting the turnaround and watching a tutu slowly and painfully fade away from you.

I took it in stride though. I'm not above a woman beating me. Fast women are awesome!

Wow, you are really fast and she was, obviously, not an ordinary runner! I wonder if her time would have been faster if she hadn't been wearing a tutu, which I'd think isn't very aero. Ha!

Great attitude.

Do women get turned off by men that think they should be traditional, stay home and raise kids? It is really nice to get home to a clean house, laundry done, kid's sports and homework done, and cooked meal every night (except for our date night).

Sure is nice! Glad the cleaning lady does a good job.

---

clm
Nashville, TN
https://twitter.com/ironclm | http://ironclm.typepad.com

yeah I'm sure they do. troll

Yes.


I am sure the traditional ladies are happy their are traditional guys like you out there. Just like I am glad not all men are traditional men. To each his/her own.

It is really nice to get home to a clean house, laundry done, kid's sports and homework done, and cooked meal every night

I know a number of single moms that do this, plus work and train. Why can't you?

Ill Play. Im a dude though. Man hands have typically fatter fingers, also the palm has thicker pads and a thicker layer of skin where you normally grip something. For some guys its a huge turn off, Im not really bothered by a girls hands at all. Just didnt see a better a description and since you were wondering......

---

---------------------------------
Hold my Beer and watch this!