True BAMF...

Lately this idea of HTFU and BAMF have taken hold in the world of triathlon like leeches slowly sucking the life out of all that used to be cool.

For those of you who don't know HTFU is harden the fuck up and BAMF is bad ass muther fucker's. Pretty lame if you ask me. I have actually seen a three wheel, trike style moped with an HTFU sticker on it, bit ironic don't you think?

There are even people merchandising this stuff at races now. Totally pathetic.

The origin of the acronyms is acceptable and fine in my book but it isn't something meant for all (if you don't know the origin figure it out and throw away your new HTFU hat).

Anyway in honor of my annoyance with the rise if these two plagues of age group triathlon I give you: my TRUE BAMF posts (look for this to become a regular thing).

So for #1 I give you the story of one Lt. Col Kelley Lemmon.

During the battle of Fontainebleau at the River Seine during WWII. Lemmon, the then battalion commander, chose not to wait for back up after the German army blasted the bridge the US was attempting to secure and rather swim the breadth of the Seine in order to get hold of 5 small row boats to begin bringing the US army across the river.

Lemmon jumped in, swam the 200m wide river, UNDER FIRE, grabbed the boats and swam back. US troops were then able to use the boats to cross the river and secure both banks in order to build a pontoon bridge and continue the press on to Berlin.

http://perso.numericable.fr/~yvesjbel/wwiihist8.html

This is a TRUE BAMF and the real definition of HTFU. The next time your whining about the water temp not allowing for wetsuits think of what it would be to do you 1500m swim with the Nazi Army shooting at you.