Triathlon Finisher Quotes

We were stereotyped the way many athletes with disabilities or illnesses are, particularly in participatory sports such as biking, running, and triathlon. After a while I could pretty much fill in the thought balloons over these people's heads. "Oh, look at these heroic young people, courageously struggling to get themselves across the finish line, in order to raise money for thier cause. How inspiring!" Don't get me wrong; while we appreciate the good wishes and realized that they were usually genuine, something in that attitude rankled me, and still does. We're athletes, dammit, and we want to be accorded the same respect as other competitors. That's how you treat somebody with illness or disability, in my opinion. Not as a special-needs person, but as a person.

The magnitude of the satisfaction that a triathlete experiences upon crossing a finish line is directly proportional to the amount of suffering he has overcome to to get there. This reward knows no ability. Even the slowest of the slow can push themselves beyond existing limits and finish with tremendous satisfaction. But winning often demands and inspires the greatest suffering and thus confers the greatest sense of pride. Often, because of the nature of competition, it is precisely he who has the most guts who is the fastest and experiences the most intense fulfillment at the finish line. Theoretically, then, the most deeply satisfying experience a triathlete could have in the sport (and among the best in life) would occur at the finish line of a race in which he has overcome as much suffering as he could possibly ever endure, and knows it.

Total Immersion: The Revolutionary Way to Swim Better, Faster, and Easier.

all you'll need to do is one intense work out a week and one less intense but longer work out each week.

if triathlons were easy, would we even be interested in doing them?

In reviewing massive data sets of hundreds of thousands of 70.3 and IRONMAN finish times, I found that fast bike times were very strongly correlated with fast overall times, run times were just slightly less correlated with overall triathlon times, and swim times were significantly less correlated with overall triathlon finish times.

In 2018, Katherine Beiers, age 85, completed the Boston marathon.55 In 2019 another old competitor to finish the Boston marathon, Larry Cole, was also age 85. In 2018, Canadian Betty Jean McHugh, age 90, continued to run marathons. She began running in her 50s. She considers the age 90 to be “just a number.”56 Not to forget Spokane-based Sister Madonna Buder (b. 1930), aka “the Iron Nun,” who by her late 80s had competed in 400 triathlons, forty-five of them Ironmans (you swim 2.4 miles, bike 112 miles, and run 26.2-miles).57 Now that she is in her 90s though, she’s had to slow down. On her daily routine she swims a half-mile, rides a bike for twenty miles, and goes for a three-mile run.58