Training? Not me!

The other side of the fence was where I ended up at this weekend’s 5150, which is a standard distance triathlon, part of the IronMan stable. Not where I wanted to be. I wanted to be racking my bike, pulling on my wetsuit and generally partaking. But the Gods of training let me down. I think they call it training interruptus.

The first interruptus was being knocked down by a car and that was closely followed by posterior shin splints.

Watching the action as opposed to doing the action is not my idea of fun after having put in a little time, effort and energy hurting various muscle groups and trying out the marvellously named “Horse Cream” which is in fact made for horses but works marvellously on cooling us humans down too.

The thing that stuck with me the most was not my own feeling of inadequacy at not being able to partake, or the fact that there was some serious bike-envy on hand, it wasn’t even the fact that I stood out like a sore thumb because I was one of the few males with unshaven legs. It was actually the fact that when I said I had unfortunately not been able to train I sounded like a whole bunch of other male participants.

I could not believe the number of guys talking about how little they had prepared (refer to a previous piece entitled “My dear fellow cyclists”. There seems to be something special about telling people that you have put in very little preparation for the event. As though whatever the outcome, and whatever time you achieve, it will be all the more exceptional by your latent talent, and not the road, water or saddle time you put in.

Overheard in conversation: “So dude I haven’t been on a bike the whole winter. It’s been way to cold.” “I know bro. I haven’t been in the water, I just couldn’t face the cold.” “So it’s going to be a tough one. It’s going to be Epic. I think I’m going to hurt.”

I wonder what it is that, particularly with males, we want it to seem like we have achieved with very little input or preparation. As though the outcome was not calculated and thought through.

Oh the irony. There I was thinking that I needed to do a little training to do a triathlon when all I needed was a little bravado and a surprised look that instantly says “training? Not me!”