A Challenge for the Challenger?

A Challenge for the Challenger?

By Jay Unver

(Lehrton, Mississippi) The Chicot Challenger and Big ASS Endurance kingpin, Zane Hodge, may have finally found some competition. Unknown Tristan Stacey has stepped forth and offered to take on the swimming sensation is a match race set for December 16th, 2019, at 7:00 a.m.

"How did this come about?" I asked Hodge over a cup of coffee at Plate City Gym, Hodges's private training facility, last Friday. We chatted as he rested between sets of upper body weight work that he told me was designed to make him stronger in the water.

"He's a student at the MDCC Greenwood Center where I teach. He just walked up to me-- I was on the sidewalk stretching my calves-- and he threw down the challenge, said he could beat me at swimming, said he could beat me at anything."

"Just like that?"

"Just like that. Really. He didn't preface it with anything."

"What does he know about your swimming?"

"I don't know what he knows or how he knows it."

"Why a December date?" I was curious to learn.

Hodge and Stacey square off at the MDCC Greenwood Center.

"He said he needed three months to get in shape."

"So you accepted?"

"Of course. That's what I do; I take on all comers."

"Has your training changed any since you have a set race coming up?"

"No."

"Will it?"

"Maybe. I work pretty hard anyway. There is not likely to be the need to change my training programming. I may do a little more speed work as the date draws near."

"What do you know about Stacey's athletic background?" I asked.

"Nothing. Absolutely nothing. If he can even swim, I don't know. I presume he can or he wouldn't have made the challenge."

"Are you nervous?"

"No. I'm sixty-three years old. I can't be hurt. If he beats me, he beats an old man. If I beat him, well, how could he ever live it down?" Hodge quipped with a cheesy grin.

"You're getting off on this aren't you?"

"Heck yeah. Without a Randy Beets, I was needing somebody. Maybe God sent him, Stacey. I don't know. I'm just glad someone is stepping up to the plate. I've been at the plate all alone for a long time."

"Good luck," I told him. "I'll check in with you from time to time until the race goes down."

"Thank you. I have to get back to work now. Stop by anytime."

I walked off and glanced back in time to see Hodge doing a set of pull ups. He dropped off the bar and went straight into a set of Swim Pulls. No wonder the old man keeps winning, I thought. No wonder.