Part 1: Signed up for a Tri? What on earth did you just do?

Reading, September 2016 8:25 am

‘I’ve made it. I think I can genuinely call myself a triathlete’ I thought happily as I looked round the crowded transition area. It was a typical autumn morning, cool without being cold, but a riot of colour everywhere with bright neon flags and pop up gazebos scattered throughout the small triathlon village and several hundred walking lycra billboards moving about full of purpose and determination. I was experiencing a heady mix of entirely misplaced smugness with a few butterflies knowing that the start of my first triathlon was coming in around half an hour. My bike was racked, my gear was laid out ready –more importantly I felt ready.

I chuckled as I walked past two young lads trying to talk their way past the safety marshal with a rusty, broken down old tandem. It seemed that they had already convinced him with their sheer force of will and cheerfulness into agreeing the bike might make it through the ride without exploding and had moved on to the even more difficult challenge of arguing that the horse riding helmets that they had brought clearly counted as the mandatory safety equipment. I mentally wished them luck – they were obviously going to need it.

I didn’t need luck. I’d prepared properly.

Well… that was a bold statement but I’d definitely done some training. Actually, when I say some training, I’d done a chunk of swimming and a couple of shortish rides. I still couldn’t breathe properly swimming in a wetsuit and I had worked hard to not to think about the run (rather than just getting on and training for it); instead I had reassured myself with the thought that my natural fitness would carry me through. Of course, as a 45 year old, with a sedentary desk job and carrying at least five stone of extra weight there were some questions about how much natural fitness I could still utilise – but I shook that concern off as now was clearly not the time to start worrying about this.

A sprint triathlon is a 750m swim, usually in a lake, followed by a short dash to a transition area and the spectator rich comedy display that is several hundred people trying to remember where they parked their bikes while simultaneously hopping out of wetsuits and into cycling gear in the shortest time possible; a 20-odd kilometre bike ride followed by more quick changing and then in this case a 5.4k run. I knew I could absolutely do at least two of those things as standalone activities – how hard could it be doing them one after another?

The transition area was heaving with men and women still mostly tightly wrapped up in warmup jumpers and leggings. A few here and there were carefully pulling on wetsuits as their wave was about to be called. Many were still laying out their shoes, energy gels, sunglasses and helmets, while some were chatting with their neighbours, either full of nervous excitement or relaxed and composed.

I’d walked in proudly with what I considered a decent if far from new carbon fibre road bike – there were a fair few mountain bikes and even a couple of bikes with shopping baskets or tassels hanging out the handlebars (although I now know from bitter experience anything this ludicrous is a trap set to inflict maximum humiliation on anyone its rider passes, at the time my naivety meant I assumed these would be easy targets) – but there were also rows upon rows of sleek, shiny and angular time trial bikes with complicated built in hydration systems, deep rimmed black carbon wheels and alien and torturous looking riding positions.

Make no mistake, a large percentage of the competitors were taking this very seriously indeed. My internal butterflies did a synchronised set of star jumps as I realised there was to be no unfair advantage gained by my competent, but mid to low end equipment. With some time still before we needed to get ready for the start, I distracted myself again by trying to work out how much the entire set of bikes in the transition area was worth; I got to ‘millions’ and gave up.

I was doing the event with a couple of my closest friends and one of my brothers – which meant we had supporters out in droves.

Stu was a well-rounded athlete who had done a number of triathlons – and had talked all of the rest of us into signing up. He’s such a nice, open and friendly guy we tended to forget just how much running he’d been doing and the fact that he was many many years younger than us. Alcohol had been involved in him persuading us, but nowhere near as much as I would have assumed necessary before that fateful decision was made. With a few triathlons already under his belt, Stu was much more relaxed than the rest of the group, and we were pummelling him with last minute questions and concerns like they were machine gun bullets as our nervousness continued to slowly climb.

Barney was a great bike rider, but still wouldn’t describe himself as a swimmer (his preferred term for his ability level was ‘non-drowner’) or a runner; a similar age, but in much better shape, like me he was keen to give it a go and just find out what he was capable of delivering.

My much younger brother Matt was also ready to roll – ridiculously good at swimming and running and fit enough to bluff it on the bike – we were collectively desperate to see what he could do.

Despite the low rumble of activity I could hear my nine year old son bellowing ‘Good Luck Daddy! You’re definitely going to need it!’ from the top of the spectating hill as clearly as if he was stood next to me. I tried to take his words as I assumed he intended, but it didn’t really help as much as he may have expected. The rest of our friends and family had laid out picnic blankets on the grass and had a great view of the transition area; it was quite intimidating knowing everyone was watching.

Everyone else there seemed to know exactly what they were doing. Like a bunch of bug eyed kids, we watched carefully as these more experienced triathletes laid out their gear – we planned to copy them slavishly while trying to look like we’d done it a million times before, but there was so much exciting stuff happening everywhere, it was overwhelming.

With raised eyebrows and pointed glances, we silently tried to use our own special brand of telepathy to share our concerns and exclamations – it felt like every single person had their own rituals, their own process – Did we need antifog spray for goggles and silicon spray for easier wetsuit removal? What about the small mushroom clouds of talcum powder puffing up everywhere? Were people wearing socks for the ride or the run or both?

Not one athlete was consistent with the others and lots just didn’t seem to make sense, and although we were each furiously making extensive mental notes with a fair few new ideas most were going to be far too late for this event.

By now, I was firmly focused on trying to ignore just how fit everyone else in the transition area looked; I was far and away the fattest person out of the four hundred or so competitors there. Despite what I’ve always imagined, wetsuits are not flattering on anyone with more than single digit body fat percentages and I knew I made a fair stab at the ‘Best Black Pudding’ fancy dress award as I pulled on mine. My ‘Natural Fitness’ training strategy was beginning to look properly misjudged and panic levels were continuing to rise.

Suddenly, the pleasant lady with the megaphone was bellowing for the age 40+ sprint participants to make their way to the lake for the safety briefing. Her voice had snapped from background white noise into laser like focus instantaneously, as if the megaphone had suddenly stretched out and was pointed directly at my head. It was too late for doubts, nerves or questions – we were on.

We grabbed our hats and goggles and made the short walk to the start area, a small patio leading to a floating pontoon. As we drifted over we could see the under 40 wave – basically forty bobbing orange hats – in front of us – and including the significantly younger Matt and Stu – launch themselves furiously across the water as the starting horn was blown. The sheer violence and density of the disturbed water was surprising and shocking, knowing that it would be us next.

We were pretty sure we could pick out both of our friends from the suddenly white water due to their distinctive swimming styles and although Stu looked like he had a good position towards the front and slightly to one side, Matt looked like he was taking a bit of a beating in the middle of the most contested part of the leading pack. Despite mild concern for my younger sibling, that was actually pretty funny to watch.

Ohgodohgodohgod. If I’d know how the next couple of hours were going to shake out at this point, I definitely would have gone home.

Ok, let’s get this out the way early. Triathlons are brilliant. You probably suspect this, or you wouldn’t have read this far. You might have had a friend or family member do one and tell you all about it because there’s nothing more predictable than a shiny new triathlete wanting, needing to share his experience with anyone who stops moving long enough for them to talk at – it was a couple of close friends that charmed the rest of us into it with tales of sporting heroics. You might have watched the Brownlee brothers obliterate the best in the world somewhere gloriously warm and sunny (because it’s always warm and sunny for the elite races, but don’t count on the same for your local one).

There are so many reasons why you might want to give a tri a go, but I think they usually boil down to ‘Because I can’ or perhaps even more powerfully ‘Because I think I might be able to, but I’m not 100% certain and would really like to know’. What’s weird is that unless you are competing at the very top end there is very rarely any sign of ‘And because I think someone else might not be able to’ – a triathlon at any level is basically a solitary trial, a contest of fitness, determination and willpower where you are competing with yourself and your own physical and mental weakness.

This means that there’s a huge pool of goodwill in triathlon competition – supporting crowds on a triathlon are always great, but what consistently surprises me is how awesome the other competitors often are – a few gasping words of encouragement from a total stranger on the ride or especially the run (for reasons that will shortly be explained, the swim tends to be a bit more combative) can give you a real lift and help you keep going when you need it most – and they always seem to come when you do really need them, as you are constantly surrounded by a group of like-minded people who can recognise someone in difficulty having been there many times themselves…

There’s a phrase that goes something along the lines of ‘Everyone wants to be the hero of their own story’ – and that’s something even the shortest of Triathlons can give you. Very few of us are ever going to win a Triathlon, or even their age group, but there are so many people who would write themselves off with ‘I would never be able to swim in a lake’ or ‘I’ve not ridden a bike since I was a teenager’ or ‘I just can’t run’ – if you can make it to the start you’ve already beaten every single one of them. Now it’s just down to you to be a hero and smash your triathlon out of sight – by the standards you can set for yourself.

If you are looking for detailed training plans this is not the guide for you; I probably also won’t be able to help you shave a few seconds off a long time Personal Best (PB for short). What I’m aiming to do is help you be more comfortable with that first event which I know from experience can be terrifying – there are so many unknowns and uncertainties and I hope I can help with that by sharing some stories and some specific guidance. I fully intended to do just one Triathlon, then be done with it; It’s not a huge spoiler to tell you now that I survived that first triathlon, and you probably already suspect it could have gone better with more forethought and preparation; but even that first disaster of an event lit a fire underneath me and I’ve learned a little from each event I’ve done since then.

Most of this learning is simple but was hard earned – let’s see if we can skip you ahead a few of those steps together.

Swim-Bike-Run. It sounds so simple, especially when you say it really fast. Most triathletes would mutter under their breath ‘Should be Swim-Transition-Bike-Transition-Run’ (as transitions are very much a fourth discipline that can make or break your tri) but that doesn’t trip off the tongue quite so well. It’s a brand-new sport as these things go – modern triathlon is considered to have started in 1974 in San Diego and it only found its way into the Olympics at Sydney in 2000. Despite that, everyone has heard of the Ironmen and Ironwomen, legendary masochists pushing their bodies to perform superhuman feats of endurance; many will have heard of the beating heart of Triathlon, the flagship event in Kona, Hawaii. If this is news to you, go and whack ‘Kona Ironman’ into a search engine and lose a few minutes soaking in the scale and scope of top end triathlon.

Slightly less exotically and closer to home, growth has still been rapid and significant – 202,000 people did at least one triathlon in Britain in 2016, which works out to 550 every single day.

There’s some variation, but the standard distances for events usually are fairly close to the following:

Short distances:

Super sprint distance: 400m (swim), 10km (bike), 2.5km (run)
Sprint distance: 750m (swim), 20km (bike), 5km (run)
Standard (Olympic) distance: 1500m (swim), 40km (bike), 10km (run)

Middle distance:

70.3/middle/half-Ironman distance: 1.9km (swim), 90km (bike), 21km (run)

Going Long:

Full/Ironman distance: 3.8km (swim), 180km (bike), 42km (run)

For now, I’m assuming that your target is a Super sprint or Sprint triathlon. Most Super sprint tris will involve a pool swim while most Sprints will be an open water swim – there are pros and cons to both and open water swimming is a spectacular part of the full triathlon experience. Certainly, from May through to around the end of October you can pretty much guarantee there is going to be a sprint distance triathlon taking place every single weekend within an hour drive of just about anywhere in the country. There are flat ones, and hilly ones, and muddy ones, and expensive ones, and friendly ones and… It’s really just a case of picking one you fancy, signing up and then with the date booked in the calendar and something to aim for getting started.

It’s natural to be considering a first triathlon and to ask if you are physically capable of completing it. For a Sprint triathlon the answer is almost certainly yes. Most people can ride a bike for around an hour and walk or run 5k (kilometres, or 3 miles in old money) in the same or less. The leg most likely to be a blocker is the swim, and I’ll talk about that in the next chapter.

There’s a surprisingly small amount of kit you actually need – and a lot of that can be hired or borrowed (avoiding buying too much early on is probably a good idea to start with for many reasons) and again I’ll go into more detail on this later.

You don’t need a huge amount of training time every week for a short course event like this; although I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it you can always adopt the approach I utilised, where you rely on the power of positive thinking to outweigh a total lack of training – assuming you can swim, and ride a bike, this may work well for you (or work for you, at least). More likely to be successful as a bare minimum would be a swim or two a week, a run a week, and a ride once every two weeks or so – although of course the more you put in, the faster and less painful race day is likely to be.

I guess what I’m saying is whatever your reason for wanting to do a triathlon, you almost certainly can do it, and it will almost certainly be everything you are hoping it might be for you.

Next: Part 2; The Swim