Jenny took our youngest son to a birthday party last week….and I stayed home to take care of the “baby”.

Miracle of miracles, the baby fell asleep for part of the afternoon….and while she rested on my shoulder, I watched this on TV.

Talk about “armchair athlete”….maybe that’s the best I can do right now?

There’s something that approaches “endurance” when you have to stay still with a baby on your shoulder. It’s like a parental form of Pilates or something….it’s hard to stay still when you have to.

This race fascinated me.

All these men and women….crawling around in the mud….running up hills with bags of sand….swimming in the water and climbing ropes and jumping over holes and logs….it fascinated me.

I sat on the couch and held the baby and watched all these athletes do things that I remembered were kind of hard to do.

What an armchair athlete.

What an armchair wannabe.

Did I say “kind of hard to do”?

I meant…..really hard to do.

To see these people cramping up towards the end of these races….probably cramping because of the cold water and the chill of the Vermont mountains and the exertion….made for some good watching as I sat on my comfortable couch in my comfortable house.

I’d rather watch this than watch golf.

I’d rather figure out a way to do this than watch it.

Pretty cool.