How to let someone know you're a tri-geek without trying.

One thing about tri-geeks is that we love to talk about triathlon. Whether it's about our newest play things, or our latest race, we love to talk "shop". When we're at a pre-race pasta party, or race expo it's easy to find fellow geeks to talk with. When we're at a party where we're not wearing our latest race tee shirt, and we don't know a lot of people we may not get the chance to talk about our triathlon passion. (Okay, addiction is more to the point, but I'm trying to look upon what I do in a kinder, gentler manner.)

We can always go for the direct method. "Hi, I'm Polly, and I'm a tri-geek." We can also try the less direct route. "You played 18 holes of golf today? That's nice. I rode my bike 30 miles, and ran 3 miles right after." That might evoke the question, "Oh do you do triathlons?" or "Why in earth would you do that?" If you're talking to a golf geek you're more likely to get the latter question. Though golf geeks are just as bad as us when it comes to talking about new play things, and their latest round of golf.

I didn't have to resort to any of these methods tonight. I was relatively dressed up, and was wearing a gold necklace with a triathlon charm on it. One woman spots it, and points it out to her husband. "Honey check out her necklace. You'll find it of interest."

Me: "You do triathlons?"

He: "Yes, I've been doing them for 3 years, and you?"

Me: "Ummm, since 1983."

He: "Wow you've been doing them from the beginning...."

From there we compared what races we've done this season, what races we have coming up. We griped about how much we hate to run, etc. etc. His wife may have been sorry she pointed out the necklace. It turns out we've done a few of the same races this season, and that we'll be doing 2 more of the same races. When he mentioned his time in one of the races I decided not to tell him my time was about 7 minutes faster. No point in telling a guy in his early 30s that he got smoked by a 51 year woman. Though he did make a point of getting my last name before the evening was over, so I'm sure if he's like me, he'll go check out the results of the races we did.