101 things you should have known before your first Tri…

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101 things you should have known before your first Tri…

Dan • 23 November 2020

All the things you wish you knew

You Will

• Never only do just one Tri

• Do better than you think you would have done

• Probably not finish last

• Enjoy it

• Join the local tri club

• Have bike envy

• Want another bike

• Will buy another bike, if not more than one

• Will fully justify buying multiple bikes

• Swear you will never do another tri … then go back home and book another race

• Own more trainers than shoes

• Start socialising less, but when you do will talk about triathlon

• Watch people running and either say or think "I can run faster than that"

• Buy a Garmin (other GPS devices are available)

• Start buying Tri220 or Triathlon Plus –

• Go to a Triathlon Show

• Buy some elastic laces – fit them to all your trainers

• Shower three times a day … or more

• Buy another pair of trainers

• Buy lycra cycling shorts and kit – firstly as dark a colour as possible so as not to draw attention

• After a year buy the brightest Lycra you can so it gets you seen

• End up owning more Lycra than casual clothes and work clothes put together

• Buy 5 pairs of goggles or more until you find the pair that fits your face and doesn’t leak

• Buy anti-fog Spray

• Buy cycling glasses

• Buy a pair of carbon wheels for racing only

• Buy 5 pairs of running shorts

• Buy 6 running tops

• Spend half your earnings on new Tri kit, race entries, travel and merchandise

• Spend weeks reviewing products online even after you have bought them … helps justify the spend

• Believe the hype about every new product and that it will make you more efficient and faster

• Set up a Wiggle account, Chain Reaction, Sportpursuits and Tredz – plus about 15 others…

• Spend more time admiring bikes online than you would ever think possible

• Say I could of gone faster but …….

• Say I nearly had a new PB but …..

• Say If only I had taken it easier on the bike I would have gone faster on the run

• Say I was cut up on the swim session – people just don’t have swim lane etiquette

• Buy a turbo trainer – probably use it once then leave it sitting there

• Say you will never do an Ironman, but within a year you have booked one

• Say you will never do another Ironman …. Then go and book another one

• Have more water bottles than you would ever need

• Lose something in amongst the lycra, but rather than look for it – go on to Wiggle and order another one – justified by it was needed anyway

• Feel the need to “go” when out on the run – eventually you will just head for the nearest bush

• After the first incident of "needing to go" – the next time you will without hesitation just head for the nearest bush anyway

• Fart when you run – this becomes second nature – realise you must stay of the milk

• Pee in your wetsuit an think it is normal

• Think about peeing on the bike to save seconds in a triathlon

• Try to pee while riding bike, realising its more difficult than you thought

• Pee in a bush on every long ride at least once

• Buy sudocrem to relieve nappy rash

• Buy Chamoise cream to stop nappy rash from happening

• Realise nothing stops nappy rash so you put up with the pain

• Buy one of Joe Beers Books

• Buy one of Ironfit books

• Wear lycra shorts to the pub/Cafe after a ride

• Not be worried about been seen in public wearing the tightest most revealing lycra

• Stare at a lycra clad bottom for hours whilst drafting them on the bike

• Fire snot rockets from your nose

• Misfire snot rockets all over your face, clothes and helmet

• Think and talk about triathlon 24/7 –

• Bring triathlon into any subject been discussed

• Downplay your successes – but bring them into conversation anyway

• On your not so good results say you weren’t trying – it was just training

• Research the startlist of you’re “A” race to see who you are racing against

• Google your opponents to see what their previous results were and whether you can beat them

• Set up a Garmin Account, Strava account, Training Peaks account

• Spend hours looking at your training online

• Know the local KOM segments and try and beat your clubmates

• Draft on the club ride up to segment then blast past all those in front of you to get the segment

• Do the local TT’s and turn up in your trisuit – be turned away as it doesn’t have sleeves

• Join the local cycling club so you can buy their club kit and do the TT’s in a speed suit

• Go for a run directly after local TT …. Damn it they now realise I am a triathlete and forever will take the piss

• Find a local lake or river and go for a swim, watching over your shoulder for the police or local official

• Buy some more trainers

• Spend months contemplating buying an aero helmet and which one, whilst worrying about what you will look like, are you fast enough, researching hundreds of helmets – then eventually just buying the one that was rated highest in 220 magazine

• Look at every cyclist that you pass, checking out their bikes

• Do London Triathlon just once …. Great event and well worth the hassle

• Register for the London Marathon … ten years later still can’t get in so get a charity spot and raise £2k -

• Go for a bike fit – spend between £150 and £300 – come back convinced it was worth it – 6 months later look back at your results and nothing has changed

• Get gait analysis done, feel guilty and spend a fortune in the shop, when you get home realise that you could have bought the same trainers online for £50 less – so go buy them also.

• Try every new fad going … even though a more experienced triathlete has told you they have tried it before and doesn’t work ..

• One day become that /\/\/\ experienced triathlete

• Think about writing a book about triathlon – realise that you probably never will

• Get a triathlon related tattoo …. MDOT if an IronMan race completed

• Realise you can’t get an MDOT as you did Outlaw Tri – get an Outlaw tattoo

• Buy copious amounts of kit at each expo including MDOT race merchandise

• Wear your finishers T-shirt for months – then wear it at every event you go to

• Buy some calf guards

• Race in calf guards

• Walk round after a race wearing shorts Finishers T Shirt and dayglo calf guards (damn if only I knew this before I started)

• Realise all your remaining friends are triathletes

• Think about qualifying to race for GB Age Group

• Look at the qualifying races and past results, think OK I am in I will give it a shot – realise after the race it’s not quite as simple as it appears

• Think about getting a coach – decide to go it alone, plenty of info out there, spend a fortune on books and buy new race wheels instead.

• Buy another wetsuit as yours was a beginners suit – soon after realise it makes no difference

• Buy the best tyres you can afford – get a puncture in the first week – blame the tyre

• Fix a puncture by replacing tyre, puncture new tube with tyre levers, try again

• Buy CO2 canisters to pump up tyres – forget to take them with you

• Buy a floor pump, use it only when replacing tyres – rarely will you check tyre pressures

• Wash your bike after every ride, buy multiple bottles of Muckoff

• Buy Wetlube, drylube, and anyother lube going

• Keep your race bike inside your house, worrying that it will go rusty in the shed/garage

• Buy Bicycle tool kit – realise you are not sure what to do so take bike to LBS instead.

• Buy a cycle computer for the bike as you can’t see your Garmin 935 easily enough when riding

• Realise its not quite aero enough so buy an “out front” mount for your bike computer

• Upload every single ride to Garmin, comment that it was a “Training Ride” “Easy Ride” when you averaged over 30kph and got a KOM.

• Get very upset and frustrated when you accidently press “discard” on your Garmin rather than “save”

• When you have been out on a group ride – check the Strava segments to make sure you were the one that got the fastest times.

• Worry about what to wear every time you go out on a ride, how many layers, long sleeves, shorts – you know whatever you do it will be wrong.

• Not take your waterproof and 45 mins into your ride it will rain.

• Set your alarm for 3 or 4am race morning

• Not sleep properly the night before a race

• Wake up and worry about not been able to go to the loo

• Worry that you haven’t got the right kit and that you have forgotten something

• Get to the race venue and realise you forgot your chip/helmet/nutrition

• Spend the full amount of time looking at your bike in transition and making sure you haven’t forgotten anything – realise its tome to go to the swim start and you haven’t checked out Transition route.

• Spend hours in the queue for a portaloo talking to other triathletes about how not nervous you are and that you need the loo – playing down your race expectations, whilst trying to figure out if they are in your age group.

• Be at the swim start and putting your wetsuit on – someone awkwardly tells you that its on backwards ….

• Put your wetsuit back on correctly and smack yourself in the face whilst putting the arms on

• Eventually have the wetsuit on the realise you need to “Go” again

• Get to the swim start and ask a fellow triathlete when your wave is as you couldn’t hear the briefing or wasn’t listening.

• Get beat to F£”@k in the swim, especially at the turn buoys, this is the best feeling ever :I

• Get out of the swim and think, thank F£”@k for that – while trying to get the wetsuit off and tripping over getting to transition

• Run through transition and get lost, you won’t be able to see your bike knowing full well where it was, spend a minute running up and down the isles looking for it – eventually you find it was just behind where you was to start with.

• Run out of transition and past the mount line where promptly you will trip and fall while trying to mount your bike, wobble for the first 50 metres bumping into other triathletes doing the same.

• Shout obscenities at fellow triathletes who cut you up or draft you or others

• Be glad to be heading off the bike and on to the run

• Either take your feet our of your shoes 2 miles too early or forget altogether, either way making a spectacle of yourself heading into T2

• Be told off by a race marshall for unclipping your helmet before racking your bike

• Be shouted at “turn your number round” before leaving T2.

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