Me atop the Harpoon Hot Stool for a brief reign as points leader. Note I would have traded the beer for the vest.
We talk a lot inside Endurance Nation about the need to do cool stuff with your fitness. It’s not just a really good idea from a mental perspective or a season planning one, it’s a great way to take the pressure off and have fun. But since most of us are Type A endurance athletes, cool is somehow related to the concept of epic. Since riding my bike is cool, riding my bike from Boston to Portland, Maine would be really cool…right? The answer is not so simple.
Take a moment to step back to high school. There was a time where a polo shirt with the collar up was the rage. Then it was the dumbest thing you could do. As for what’s cool now, I have no idea — this is not a fashion blog). The point being that “cool” is elusive. What’s cool this year might not be cool next year, month, or week. What starts out as a really good idea in your head might not seem so cool as the event approaches, so plan carefully.
The opposite is also often true. What starts out as nothing more than a thing on your calendar becomes much, much cooler than anticipated. Case in point, the Harpoon Indoor Time Trial, as organized by Fast Splits Multisport. I signed up with Dave “The” Halligan for some suffering before I knew much about the event other than it was an 8-mile TT at the Harpoon Brewery. Seeing Dave and suffering go hand in hand, so I was looking forward to it after all my quality work in the pain cave (despite the Run For Haiti deal).
I show up to find a rock concert like setting for 24 bikes, and Dave Nerrow, FastSplits owner, tells me it’s the biggest Indoor TT ever. Cool. I see some of my friends are racing and spectating. Cool. I race and win my heat, taking the leader’s jersey for a brief time and a case of Harpoon. Cool. Getting announced as Endurance Nation means I have 4 different people come over to talk about the Team and how they have plans and want to upgrade to join, etc. Cool.
What started out as a “Honey I’ll be back in 2 hours!” became I phone call asking to stay longer, became a great social time with some business networking thrown in too (Harpoon + EN in the future??? Who knows?!). Best part is it fit in with my OutSeason training and meant a race without putting a massive hole in my training. Now I am already planning to sign up for next year…you should think about joining me.
It’s that freakin’ cool.
Hi, I'm Patrick McCrann. 
