Triathlon, Loving it is easy. (eBook)

A cyclist, unknown to us, had stopped and done the following:

1. He took the tire off the bike and the inner tube off the tire with his hands.

2. He blew air in the tube, to locate the position of the puncture.

3. He cut the tube with his teeth, exactly on the spot where the puncture was.

4. Making a simple knot, he tied the tube tightly.

5. He put the tube back in the tire, inflated it, and – even though it might be hard to believe – the tire was fine for the rest of our training.

As an experiment, my companion did not change the tire when he got home, and it lasted for another week without deflating.

This anonymous cyclist showed us how simple life can be sometimes. His little trick has been useful to us ever since, e.g. when another athlete had a punctured tire and didn’t bring the right size of tire to replace it.

SIDEBAR 6

SPORTSMANSHIP...

A demonstration of the athletic spirit by Lance Armstrong and Jan Ullrich

In the 2001 Tour de France, Armstrong had a 23-second lead over Ullrich, when Ullrich had an accident during a descent and fell off his bike, fortunately unharmed. Even though Armstrong could have continued and increased the distance between them even more, he decided not to and demanded of the others that they wait until Ullrich reached them again and Armstrong had made sure that he was okay. Ullrich returned this favor when, during the 2003 Tour de France, Armstrong (who was wearing the yellow jersey, since he was the leader of the race) accidentally collided with a spectator and fell of his bike. Ullrich, who was in the leading group with him, waited for Armstrong before he continued the race, which Armstrong eventually won (even though the title was later taken away from him due to substance abuse). Many bike fans were reminded of this incident during the 2010 Tour de France, when leader Andy Schleck was unfortunate enough to have a broken chain in the descent from a difficult hill. His main opponent, and the winner of this Tour, Alberto Contador, cycled past him and did not follow the unwritten rule. The disapproval of this behavior was very strong when he received the yellow jersey, (worn by the pioneer of the race) and during the other stages of the Tour. (Eventually, eighteen months, Contador was penalized for substance abuse, and his title was given to Andy Schleck, who had come in second.)

CHAPTER 8 - RUNNING

Out of the three disciplines that make up triathlon, running can be considered the toughest. It is a sport in which you carry your body weight unaided. As a consequence, the body absorbs more vibrations, which cause many injuries. Moreover, training for this discipline can lead to overtraining a lot faster than swimming or cycling.

On the other hand, running is considered the discipline in which the athlete can improve faster than in the other two sports, when training correctly. For example, with a proper training program, it is easier for a swimmer to become a good runner, than it is for a runner to succeed in swimming.

Furthermore, running is the activity that lies closest to our human nature. Our bodies are not actually designed for swimming and, obviously, there were no bikes around when human beings first trod the face of the earth. The transition from walking to running was crucial for human evolution. Our ancient ancestors were able to hunt more effectively when running. Even until today, there are African tribes who hunt by simply running behind a deer, often for days, until it dies from exhaustion. When I watch running competitions on TV, I often wonder whether those athletes are really the best runners in the world, or simply the best ones of those who chose to be athletes. No one knows how many talented runners may exist undiscovered in tribes, jungles, deserts, slums etc., for whom running is almost a matter of survival rather than a pastime.

The largest advantage that running has over swimming and especially cycling is that it requires next to no equipment. Moreover, from a practical point of view, running is the most flexible sport, since an athlete can literally run anywhere, which is something that can’t be said about swimming. Many runners just open their front door and start running. Two extreme examples come to my mind of the places where acquaintances of mine run. One of them is an experienced marathon runner. Whenever he wanted to run on grass and couldn’t find a track, he would run 6-9 miles (10-15 kilometers) on a central rotary in his city, the size of which was about half a basketball court. The other is a blind man, who is a true source of inspiration. He calculated how many steps he needed to get from one wall of his courtyard to the other and ran many kilometers going back and forth in a space of 50 ft (15 meters), counting his steps so that he wouldn’t hit the wall. (And you thought running was difficult?)

With regards to equipment, all you need is a pair of running shoes. As far as clothes are concerned, they vary according to personal taste and available budget. I don’t know if it’s a coincidence or a rule, but I have noticed over the years that the fastest and most achieved long-distance runners usually choose simple and functional outfits, staying away from expensive and flamboyant clothes. It seems like their clothes reflect their “low-profile” personalities. This is probably the case because, if you train at least twice a day and every training (with intervals) results in 2-3 sweat-soaked t-shirts, your clothes start falling apart quickly.

The opposite is often the case with beginners. At my local running track each year, around April-May (shortly before the beach season begins), we place our bets regarding the exact number of newcomers. With time, we have become experts in spotting them as soon as they enter the track for the first time, because of their flamboyant appearance. They wear shoes on which we would never spend such a large amount of money, fluorescent clothes that we have only seen in magazines, watches equipped with GPS and they almost certainly use some kind of sound system. If we are still doubtful on where to categorize them, we know as soon as they take their first step. Waiting impatiently, we watch those lovely people start to run at an Olympic speed, which forces them to stop their training after a couple of hundred meters. Furthermore, we know with mathematical certainty (unfortunately) that their days as prospective runners are (very) limited. Especially once they notice that they don’t automatically start losing weight immediately after they begin running.

Another type of beginner that we often see is the “bag type”. This name is derived from the “bags” or windbreakers they wear when training, no matter how hot it is outside. The subtle ones put shopping bags under their clothes (the characteristic sound does not help them in their attempt to remain incognito). However, we have also seen people who proudly wear homemade outfits of garbage bags. They think that, by wearing these bags, they will sweat more and thus lose weight. However, they could not be more wrong. The only thing they actually lose, is bodily fluids, which they immediately replenish by drinking water. Unfortunately, with those rivers of sweat they also lose valuable mineral salts, which are not as easy to replace adequately. This can endanger their health. Moreover, from a purely performance-minded point of view, the immense heat caused by the bags forces them to stop training sooner or to run more slowly, so they eventually burn fewer calories.

Older readers might remember the bilious old men in the famous Muppet Show who were sitting in the galleries, maliciously commenting on everything. I can assure you that this is not what we do. We have repeatedly tried to give these novices advice, and usually failed. To be fair, not only did we fail, but they often scolded us. If you bear in mind that half of these people are women, I am sure you do not have a problem imagining that our good intentions to help them out were often considered a bad attempt at flirting. In order to avoid these misunderstandings, we have stopped trying to help female beginners.

RUNNING, A NATURAL ACTIVITY PRONE TO EXTINCTION

Even though I mentioned earlier that running is a natural human activity, this does not imply that anyone can start running from one day to the other, as is the case with other natural activities. Besides, to be honest, our lifestyle is very different from our ancestors’. Not only have our circumstances changed, but the sporting equipment also differs. Since this is the case, maybe I should say that running was once a natural human activity, now prone to extinction, which should be rediscovered by mankind. This probably sounds like an exaggeration, and therefore I would like to illustrate my reasons for exaggerating. Try to imagine to what extent human lives have changed in the last 50-60 years, when the big bang of technological evolution distanced us from thousands of years of history. During those years, human life, occupations and survival were based on movement and, often, on running. People went hunting, were being hunted,...