Why do Irish people do triathlon?

Why do we do triathlons? Why put ourselves through the plainly ludicrous hours of training (marrying a triathlete should come with a warning about time away from home) and the obvious suffering we experience while racing? Why do we come back year after year for more of the same? We might go marginally slower or faster, but mostly we are just doing triathlons. For me the answer lies in the individual nature of the sport. I’ve played team sports of various types and always did well, but I had little control over what I did in training or in games. Triathlon, for those without a coach, puts all of the responsibility on you to do the best you can do. In team sports it is easy to play your part and leave it there.

Triathlon requires you to think of every detail of training and race planning, as Roy Keane would say: “Fail to prepare, prepare to fail”, so preparation in triathlon is everything. As my own coach, I found my motivation went through the roof. Setting my own goals meant I was no longer dancing to anyone else’s tune. Instead of training when I was told to train, I designed my training to suit me, my life and my lifestyle. I quickly grew to love the training in a way I had never loved team sports training. I had become bored with standing around pitches.

I loved the constant work required in triathlon training: an hour of lengths in the pool, miles and miles of cycling and focused running sessions. I trained because I enjoyed it. I now train with clubs and I train on my own, but one thing has changed above all – I now train longer and harder every week than ever before. I have lost weight built up over years of team sports. I no longer get asked in that mildly offensive tone if I “play rugby” because I no longer walk like one of the wrestlers from the movie Foxcatcher. Instead of team mates, I now have friends from training with a swimming, triathlon club, cycling and running clubs. It has become a way of life.  I don’t believe you can be a triathlete year after year and not learn to enjoy the work. After all, just one day’s triathlon training can often be the sum total of what training in another sport involves in a week. Looking back at my training diary for my last Ironman race, I can tell you that, on my biggest training day, I did an hour swim, a 160km bike and a 10km run. Few sports can come close to triathlon for requiring training commitment.

As for racing, you have to have a well developed pain threshold – and to enjoy pain to a certain extent – to withstand the screaming of your body during a sprint race or the aching and all round suffering of your body during an Ironman. Aside from learning to cope with pain, what draws me to race after race? There’s no simple answer to this. I am not sure myself. I’ve read countless books by athletes, cyclists and triathletes and for the most part they all confirm the reason why they raced was because they were good at it. Now, I am quite good at triathlon, but I don’t win many races. Indeed, I’d be lucky in many races to be top ten and happy in others to be top twenty.

What makes me do it? I think the answer is because racing if the only time you get to fully be yourself. You go as hard as you can for the whole race and you only have one thing to think about: finishing. There is something zen about it. Stressful a race may be, but away from the daily stresses of life, it can be just what you need. As for the fear of racing, most veteran triathletes welcome the adrenaline rushes accompanying thoughts of racing and realise these for what they are – anticipation.

Long time triathletes don’t do it to tick the bucket list, to get ripped, to show off, to wear stupid clothing and helmets or any number of other reasons I have heard from non-triathletes. They do it for the love of it.