I have impressive Facebook Friends

My Facebook friend, Tiffany, who I went to high school with just finished her second Ironman race.  I knew she was training for it and I knew Ironman races included swimming, biking and running a marathon, but I had no idea it was all done on the same day.  (No, YOU shut up!) Seriously, that's brutal.  She wrote about her experience here.

The first part of the race is swimming 2.4 MILES.  Do you know how far that is to swim?  It would take me the better part of a day to do it alone in a pool, much less outside, in some lake with a bunch of other athletes pushing and shoving.  Tiff said she ingested a bunch of water.  Then after they swim, they get out and immediately get on a bike and ride it for, get this, 112 MILES.  One-hundred and twelve miles!  Why not just a hundred?  Why tack on the extra twelve?  I thought maybe the swimming was done on a Friday, the biking on Saturday, and then the running on Sunday, but no, it's all one day.  After the bike ride they get off and run a marathon.  26 miles.  Tiff said she was having GI problems she thinks from ingesting all the water during the swim so toward the end of the marathon she was stopping in port-a-potties about every mile.  Hello, Worst Nightmare!  How you doing?  She finished the race in 12 hours.  Twelve hours of solid, non-stop exercise.  Needless to say, I would die.  I feel like an Ironman when I do a one hour workout video from start to finish without stopping it for rest breaks.  I would have drowned during the swim.  Probably within the first quarter-mile.  And even though she was sick she finished in 39th place.  That is amazing.  Congratulations, Tiff!

My sister Amy thinks I should train for a 5K running race and write a training blog like Tiffany did.  It would be such a sad, sad little blog.  I'm guessing there would be a lot of entries that were titled with some variation of the following:  "Why I didn't exercise today" and "Running Sucks ASS!"

My other impressive Facebook friend is Maria Bamford.  She is a comedian from Duluth who I've been a fan of for years.  She is HILARIOUS.  She is the blond lady on the Target holiday commercials.

I could watch her do crunches on the Target parking-lot balls, and run in her red track-suit and high heels all day long.  I love her!  Here's her website.  If you happen to listen to one of her albums and hear her do the impression of her mother, know this:  It is spot-on perfect.  I talked to her mom on the phone once for about an hour and it is ridiculous how perfectly Maria can copy her.  Watch this video to see.  I've never actually met Maria in person, but my friend Dana went to high school with her and has promised to introduce me to her.  I bet Maria is coming home for the holidays, Dana!  Hint hint! 

Those are my impressive Facebook friends.  Both of them.  The rest of you, get off your asses and do something impressive!*

*just kidding!!!!**


** not really, get out there and do something blog-worthy.