Racer X: 100 Best First Lines From Novels (19-21)

Wherein Anonymous Racer X takes the 100 Best First Lines From Novels and turns each one into the opening of a really lame tri-blog post by an infuriatingly self-obsessed triathlete.

Today's installment: Opening Lines 19-21.
Previous installment (16-18).

19. I wish either my father or my mother, or indeed both of them, as they were in duty both equally bound to it, had minded what they were about when they begot me; had they duly considered how much depended upon what they were then doing;—that not only the production of a rational Being was concerned in it, but that possibly the happy formation and temperature of his body, perhaps his genius and the very cast of his mind;—and, for aught they knew to the contrary, even the fortunes of his whole house might take their turn from the humours and dispositions which were then uppermost:—Had they duly weighed and considered all this, and proceeded accordingly,—I am verily persuaded I should have made a quite different figure in the world, from that, in which the reader is likely to see me.
I'm not worried about being a rational Being. But speaking of fathers and mothers, it would have verily rocked to have professional triathletes Tim and Nicole DeBoom as my parents. I bet if I had genes like that, Sandi from Accounting would never edge me out in another 5K.
— Laurence Sterne, Tristram Shandy (1759–1767)

20. Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
Of course I compete in triathlons for myself, to author my own heroic life script with wondrous conquests that give me great personal satisfaction. I have my hero, and he is me. But if I expect to land any hot tri chicks, these pages also must show how cool and cut I am.
— Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)

21. Stately, plump Buck Mulligan came from the stairhead, bearing a bowl of lather on which a mirror and a razor lay crossed.
My God, when did newly plump Buck stop training? Seeing Buck Mulligan buck naked sent shivers through my spine. And since he can no longer call himself a cyclist, why was he even bothering to shave his legs, I wondered in silent horror. Or was it pity?
— James Joyce, Ulysses (1922)