thresholds, and a recurring theme of my quick temper

In high school, I took Adam to Preference. We were talking after the date and I had bruise on my leg that Adam kept on poking - it was getting annoying so I very lightly slapped him.A few months ago, we were on a date. I don't know how the subject came up, but I asked him if he thought I had a high pain threshold. He said no. I was about to walk out yelling "why don't YOU try giving birth to a baby over 9 lbs with no pain medication and see how high YOUR pain threshold is!" But curiosity (and the fact I hadn't gotten dinner yet) won so I asked why. He referenced the story above, which apparently in his mind made me pretty wimpy, no matter what happened after that.
A week before this triathlon, I got really mad at a van door for not closing all the way, and subsequently closed the door with all my might, hitting my knee in the process. Dr. Kim said it was a bruised tendon and to "ice it, ice it, ice it." I did a few times, and cut out running for the week. It still hurt.
During the triathlon, the swim was good, the bike was good, the run not so much. But then during the second lap, I connected the initial bruise that Adam thought was so trivial, to my bruised tendon, and decided if I stopped favoring my knee it would be like me enduring Adam's poking 10 years ago, and maybe he would be forced to admit I have a high pain threshold. He said I did a good job.
But being always hard to please, he followed that up with saying that I need to work on my transitions, as I took longer than Mindy both times. *shrug* There's always next November.

I was very pleased with myself. I cut off 8 minutes from last year. Here are the times:
400 meter swim - 8:22
transition 1 - 4:02
10 mile bike + transition 2 - 42:35
3 mile run - 30:33
Total - 1h 25 min