Triathlon Race Quotes

Of course, competition is part of the mix -it's a race, after all- but for most of the people participating triathlon the competitive aspect is less important than the sense of a triathlon as a sort of ceremony by which we can affirm this shared bond

Seattle. I’ve never seen a city so overrun with runaways, drug addicts, and bums. Pike Place Market: they’re everywhere. Pioneer Square: teeming with them. The flagship Nordstrom: have to step over them on your way in. The first Starbucks: one of them hogging the milk counter because he’s sprinkling free cinnamon on his head. Oh, and they all have pit bulls, many of them wearing handwritten signs with witticisms such as I BET YOU A DOLLAR YOU’LL READ THIS SIGN. Why does every beggar have a pit bull? Really, you don’t know? It’s because they’re badasses, and don’t you forget it. I was downtown early one morning and I noticed the streets were full of people pulling wheelie suitcases. And I thought, Wow, here’s a city full of go-getters. Then I realized, no, these are all homeless bums who have spent the night in doorways and are packing up before they get kicked out. Seattle is the only city where you step in shit and you pray, Please God, let this be dog shit. Anytime you express consternation as to how the U.S. city with more millionaires per capita than any other would allow itself to be overtaken by bums, the same reply always comes back. “Seattle is a compassionate city.” A guy named the Tuba Man, a beloved institution who’d play his tuba at Mariners games, was brutally murdered by a street gang near the Gates Foundation. The response? Not to crack down on gangs or anything. That wouldn’t be compassionate. Instead, the people in the neighborhood redoubled their efforts to “get to the root of gang violence.” They arranged a “Race for the Root,” to raise money for this dunderheaded effort. Of course, the “Race for the Root” was a triathlon, because God forbid you should ask one of these athletic do-gooders to partake in only one sport per Sunday.

The world, with its commonsensical viewpoint, thinks their lifestyle is peculiar. And it would be hard to argue with anyone who labeled them eccentrics and oddballs. But there’s something we share, not something as exaggerated as solidarity, perhaps, but at least a warm emotion, like a vague, faintly colored mist over a late-spring peak. Of course, competition is part of the mix -it's a race, after all- but for most of the people participating triathlon the competitive aspect is less important than the sense of a triathlon as a sort of ceremony by which we can affirm this shared bond.

The happiest thing for me about this day’s race was that I was able, on a personal level, to truly enjoy the event. The overall time I posted wasn’t anything to brag about, and I made a lot of little mistakes along the way. But I did give it my best, and I felt a nice, tangible afterglow. I also think I’ve improved in a lot of areas since the previous race, which is an important point to consider. In a triathlon the transition from one event to the next is difficult, and experience counts for everything. Through experience you learn how to compensate for your physical shortcomings. To put it another way, learning from experience is what makes the triathlon so much fun. Of course it was painful, and there were times when, emotionally, I just wanted to chuck it all. But pain seems to be a precondition for this kind of sport. If pain weren’t involved, who in the world would ever go to the trouble of taking part in sports like the triathlon or the marathon, which demand such an investment of time and energy? It’s precisely because of the pain, precisely because we want to overcome that pain, that we can get the feeling, through this process, of really being alive — or at least a partial sense of it. Your quality of experience is based not on standards such as time or ranking, but on finally awakening to an awareness of the fluidity within action itself. If things go well, that is.

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.

We encourage our coached athletes to write out a chronological list of activities, with exactly what they plan to do and when they plan to do it, over the final forty-eight to seventy-two hours before their big race. Actually write out a detailed schedule of when you will be traveling, when and where you will eat, when you will sleep, when you plan to visit registration, when you plan to organize your race equipment, when you plan to do your last couple of training sessions, and all of the other little activities you need to efficiently complete, right up until the time you enter the water on the morning of your race.

Now that everyone can afford status items like designer jeans, conspicuous consumption gives way to conspicuous exertion. Sheer exhilarating length becomes a value in itself. And the triathlon comes to represent, to quote a winner of the Hawaiian Ironman race, "the ultimate expression of the Southern California life-style." Which is why, outside a cluster of easeful lands, the recreational ordeal is not wildly popular. In America, people run for fun. In Beirut, they run for their lives. People there listen not for the starter's gun, but for the sniper's. In some parts of the world, when a man runs 26 miles it's because he's come from Marathon and he's strictly on business.

This has been the secret to many athletes’ best races—a sharp focus on the present. The past is gone, and the future will take care of itself.

Instead determine your lactate threshold heart rate by doing a hard 30-minute running time trial all by yourself (not in a race). Try to have the same race pace all the way through. Start your heart rate monitor when you have 20 minutes left to go. Your average heart rate for the last 20 minutes is approximately your lactate threshold heart rate. Here

The mission of training is to arrive at your race ready to perform your best.

Act Like a Champion YOU'RE A CHAMPION. Here's proof: You're alive. You were conceived in the womb of your mother as a result of the most exhausting, gruesome race in the universe. There were 180 million human sperms running, swimming, cycling towards one solitary egg waiting in the fallopian tube of the female body. It was a triathlon of epic proportions where there would be only one champion. And you won. You came out the champion. You defeated 180 million competitors. I repeat: You're already a champion. So act like one. God created you for a sacred mission. So live life every day with purpose and passion.

In a hilly, long-course race, your focus must be on “smoothing” the course. The power on uphills must be restricted by gearing down and keeping your power output below your functional threshold power (FTP) (or even lower on longer climbs). The typical newcomer to Ironman-distance racing pushes far too hard on hills, especially early in the race, and pays the price later as high fatigue sets in. •  For short climbs of up to 5 min. duration, athletes should consider an effort ceiling of 90–100 percent of FTP. •  For longer climbs, consider an effort ceiling of 80–90 percent of FTP. •  For all climbs, it is very important to “save some watts” for cresting the apex of the climb. Novices tend to have their highest watts at the base of a climb. The intelligent athlete will have his or her highest watts over the top of a climb and accelerate down the backside. Experienced power users know that higher lactate levels can be cleared during the descent and after the rider has returned to cruising speed. •  On the downhill side, stop pedaling and coast in the aero position when your pedaling cadence becomes so high that you begin to breathe more heavily. If in doubt, coast the downhills so long as your speed is well above your average for the race.

While most athletes were deep into their pre-race rituals and getting psyched up for the longest day of their racing lives, we buzzed overhead in a C-130, jumped from 1,500 feet, and parachuted into the water, where we were scooped up by a Zodiac and motored to shore just four minutes before the gun. That was barely enough time for a blast of energy gel, a swig of water, and to change into our Navy SEAL triathlon suits.