Going Off Course - Minneapolis-based veterinarian / medical affairs person / decorated triathlete Gillian Auslander is kinda enigmatic.

How so, you inquire?

How else would you describe a person who can dispassionately perform a Dual Radical Testiclectomy on a bull while eating a meatball marinara sub in the afternoon, then cry at the end of "Marley & Me" later that evening? Those things--de-stoning and animal movie crying--are generally mutually exclusive.

Gillian, pronounced "Gill-ee-un," not "Jill-ee-un," did that once, we think? And that's not the only example of conclusive enigmaticism that defines her. As many of you already know, Ms. Auslander appears very sweet and mild-mannered and you have to get really close to her mouth if you want to hear her speak. She's not a loud-talker. Yet, "Shook Me All Night Long" by scream rockers AC/DC is her favoritest song ever. In fact, she loves hi-decibel screechy singers, like Angus Young and Steven Tyler, who if you read his autobiography you'd know that he did more drugs than Jim Morrison, Amy Winehouse and Keith Richards put together....

* 2012 MMA Party - Mark you calendars! The 2012 Minnesota Multisport Awards Party is tentatively slated for Saturday, November 10. Venue location and details will be announced soon. We invite ALL of our state's tri and du-athletes--newbies, recreational athletes, grizzled veterans (and their families)--to celebrate the '12 season and all the blessings associated with being a multisportsperson in Minnesota. We also encourage those who have yet to enter a race but are seriously considering doing so in 2013, to attend this party. These folks will come away from this experience knowing just how totally cool Minnesota's athletes, events and resources really are. The Party will feature yummilicious food, unlimited adult beverages and great conversation with friends old and new. It will also be a great opportunity for horndogs like Sean Cooley to meet girls. And for girls looking for guys, well, as they say here in self-effacing Minnesota, "you could do a lot worse."....

By Trent Theroux (for xtri.com)

I'm getting old and crotchety. I read somewhere that there are two types of people in the world - those that come in for bed at 11:00pm and those that are just heading out at 11:00pm. Somewhere in my thirties I passed from the latter to the former without even knowing it. Something else that has passed me by is the body art rave. Growing up, the only people I knew with tattoos were sailors and felons. Popeye and Bluto.

As a teenage busboy, I served a man wearing a muscle shirt sporting a heart-shaped tattoo on his left shoulder. The tattoo covered his entire shoulder and was black against his very red skin. The inscription inside the heart read Danielle & Tommy. Except that Danielle's name was scribbled out (in ink) and replaced with Mindy. I sarcastically told their waitress that I guess ink lasts longer than love. She told me that his first wife died and that I was an idiot. Until now, I've kept me tattoo opinions to myself....

By Bonnie Lessonlearner

If you want to succeed, set yourself up for failure. That just got added to my list of personal mantras. It wasn’t at the moment our car slid into a ditch near the entry of the race parking lot that this epiphany took place. Not while we thanked the officer a few hours prior for only giving our driver a proof of insurance ticket instead of the felony speeding and reckless driving ticket he may have slightly deserved as he fishtailed around a semi truck 20mph over the speed limit, while we sat terrified and helpless in the backseat. Nope. That was a different lesson entirely. This mantra materialized on a steep, dark, snowy trail blistering with negative wind chills in the dead of night. We were 16 miles into the race with 50 miles to go. We never made it the whole 64 miles. And that was a good thing....

By Margaret Heffernan (for inc.com)

Arianna Huffington talks often about how the key to her productivity is sleep.

It's a smart suggestion, not least because so many of us still imagine that the more we work, the more productive we are. For over a hundred years or more, this has been deemed nonsense.

The first productivity studies were conducted by Ernst Abbe at the Zeiss lens laboratories in the 1880s. They indicated what every other productivity study has shown since: that, up to around 40 hours a week, we're all pretty productive but, after that, we become less able to deliver reliable, cost-effective work. Why? Because when we get tired, we make mistakes—and the extra hours we put in are absorbed by correcting our errors. This is demonstrably true in industries like software coding, in which mistakes can cost a lot of time to put right. But it is equally true in manufacturing where more units of production also mean more flaws and waste....

By Chuckie V (chuckiev.blogspot.com)

Guys: I'm not sure if you've received the memo concerning "getting chicked," but if the phrase "you got chicked!" (or any variant thereof) is something you've uttered or even thought about before, well, perhaps it is high-time you have...

1. Don't be so small-minded and chauvinistic; women are athletes too.

2. Swim enough and you'll be fully accustomed to being chicked.

3. Run against Chrissie or Caitlin or Mirinda or Melissa and trust me, you'll get chicked.

4. Play tennis against the Williams sisters and you'll be chicked, times two.

5. Ski against Lindsey Vonn and you'll end up chicked, if not in the emergency room....

By Darin Wieneke

YWCA Winter Indoor Tri - The YWCA has been putting on indoor triathlons for a number of years now and they are perfecting that format. On Sunday, the YWCA hosted its Winter Indoor Triathlon, they also have fall and spring indoor triathlons, at the Midtown YWCA. The race featured sprint (600 yard swim-10 mile bike- 2 mile run) and mini-sprint (400 yard swim-8 mile bike- 1 mile run) formats, as well as a newly added Youth Splash and Dash for kids ages 9-15. As a participant and observer of these races over the years, I have to give credit to the YWCA team for tweaking their races every year to make them more participant and fan friendly. The hospitality area, where everyone is welcome to share in snacks and poster making, is one great feature of the race....

By Erika Sperl-Imhof

There are a few people who, in a moment of delirium, decided to sign up for a late winter or spring Ironman. If you’re from this beautiful[ly frozen] state of Minnesota, you’re clearly not racing here. Perhaps you’re planning on heading south… 70.3 San Juan (March 18th), Rev3 Costa Rica (March 17th), or west for 70.3 California. In the Ironman brand series alone, there are twenty events between February and May. No matter which race you’re training for, whether it’s a full or half, one thing is for sure: you will be spending a significant number of hours training!...

NOOSA HEADS, Australia (AP) Chris McCormack's friends joked that he was going through a… Read

USA Triathlon announced today that it has renewed its partnership with official supplier Athletes… Read

At today's U.S. Olympic and Paralympic Assembly in Colorado Springs, Colo., Charlie Paddock was… Read

Team USA athletes impressed on the world multisport stage Sunday by claiming 14 age group world… Read

Three-time Olympian Hunter Kemper won a record seventh career men’s elite national title, and… Read