[PREVIEW] Triathlon as a Lifestyle

Triathlon works best, long-term, as a lifestyle. Easier said than done?

TRANSCRIPT

The Lonely Triathlete — Triathlon as a Lifestyle

I've been thinking a lot this week about the idea of triathlon as a lifestyle.

And specifically, I'm thinking about the training side of triathlon.

Because when somebody is new to the sport, I think one of the things that can be really interesting—and really beneficial—is that, over time, triathlon can become more than just something you do.

It can actually become part of your lifestyle.

And I started thinking about what that really means.

Because we use the word "lifestyle" all the time, but what actually makes something a lifestyle?

Well, I think one of the big things is that it's habitual.

It's something you do repeatedly. It's something that eventually becomes almost automatic.

I mean, think about eating breakfast. Or eating lunch. You don't wake up every morning and have a big internal debate about whether you're going to eat today.

It's just part of your life.

And I think there's something really interesting about what happens when training starts to move in that direction.

When you're new to triathlon, you probably have to think about everything.

When am I going to swim?

When am I going to ride?

When am I going to run?

What workout am I going to do?

What do I need to eat?

What do I need to bring?

Do I have clean cycling clothes?

Is my bike ready?

There's all this friction around the activity.

But if you stick with it long enough, some of that starts to disappear.

You know what Tuesday is.

You know that Thursday is a run day.

You know that Sunday morning is probably going to involve a bike.

You start preparing your gear without really thinking about it.

You start arranging your life around the things that are important to you.

And eventually, you're not really asking yourself, "Am I going to train today?"

You're asking yourself, "How am I going to make today's training work?"

And I think that's a pretty significant shift.

So what creates that shift?

I think the first thing is consistency.

And I don't mean perfection.

That's an important distinction.

Consistency doesn't mean you never miss a workout.

It doesn't mean you execute every training week exactly as prescribed.

It doesn't mean you never get sick, or injured, or have a busy week at work, or have something happen in your family.

Consistency means that you keep coming back.

You train.

You miss a workout.

You get back to training.

You have a great week.

You have a terrible week.

You keep going.

And eventually, those repeated actions start to become a pattern.

And that pattern starts to become a habit.

And the habit starts to become part of your life.

I think patience is another big piece of this.

Because triathlon is really good at teaching you that you don't get everything you want immediately.

You can have a great training week and not see any improvement.

You can work really hard for three months and discover that your FTP went up by 10 watts.

And you might think, "That's it?"

But then you look back two years later and realize that those 10-watt improvements, those little improvements in your running, those little improvements in your swimming, all accumulated into something pretty significant.

That's the nature of endurance sport.

You're accumulating.

And I think that's one of the beautiful things about it.

There's also resilience.

Because if you're going to make triathlon part of your life, you're going to have setbacks.

You are going to miss workouts.

You're going to have bad races.

You're going to get sick.

You're probably going to get injured at some point.

You're going to have periods where life gets in the way.

And one of the skills you develop is simply learning how to pick yourself up and start again.

And that's a pretty useful skill outside of triathlon, too.

Because life doesn't really care what your training plan says.

Sometimes life happens.

And the question becomes, "Okay. What do I do now?"

Not, "How do I make up every workout I missed?"

Not, "How do I punish myself for falling behind?"

Just, "Okay. What's the next thing I can reasonably do?"

And I think that's another characteristic of something that's sustainable.

It's flexible.

It can bend without breaking.

And that brings me to one of the dangers for somebody who's new to the sport.

Because I think it's very easy to confuse enthusiasm with sustainability.

You discover triathlon and you think, "This is amazing."

And suddenly you're looking at training plans and YouTube videos and gear and nutrition and power meters and heart-rate zones and all of these things.

And before you know it, you're trying to do everything.

And you're training five or six days a week.

And you've bought a bunch of equipment.

And you're trying to optimize every workout.

And you're exhausted.

And you've been doing it for six weeks.

And then you wonder why you can't maintain it.

So I think one of the most important questions for a new triathlete isn't:

"How much can I do?"

It's:

"What can I do consistently?"

And maybe even more importantly:

"What can I imagine myself doing five years from now?"

Because if the answer is, "Well, there's no way I can keep doing this," then maybe you've built something that's too big.

So how do you actually figure that out?

I think you start with your life.

Not with the training plan.

Look at your week.

Look at your work.

Look at your family.

Look at your sleep.

Look at the other things that matter to you.

And then ask yourself: where does training realistically fit?

Maybe you start with a very simple week.

One swim.

One bike.

One run.

And maybe that's not your ultimate training program.

It's just your starting point.

It's your minimum viable version of being a triathlete.

And once that feels normal—once it feels like, "Yeah, this is just what I do"—then maybe you add something.

And you see how that feels.

Maybe you experiment with when you train.

Maybe mornings work better.

Maybe evenings work better.

Maybe you discover that getting everything ready the night before removes a tremendous amount of friction.

And that's another thing I think people underestimate:

You're not just building a training plan. You're building a system around the training.

The bike gets cleaned.

The bottles get filled.

The clothes get laid out.

The shoes are ready.

The workout is on the calendar.

And suddenly, tomorrow morning doesn't require a whole bunch of decisions.

That's what I mean by reducing friction.

The fewer decisions you have to make, the easier it becomes to repeat the behaviour.

And I think it's also worth deciding ahead of time what happens when things go wrong.

Because things will go wrong.

Maybe you miss Tuesday's workout.

What's your rule?

Do you try to squeeze it in Wednesday?

Do you move on?

Do you change the rest of the week?

Maybe you have a terrible night's sleep.

What's your rule?

Maybe you're feeling beat up.

What's your rule?

I think having some of those decisions made in advance can be incredibly helpful.

Because you don't want to make your best decisions about training when you're exhausted, frustrated, or feeling guilty.

Sometimes the best training decision is simply to let the workout go.

And then come back tomorrow.

But there's another potential trap.

And that's allowing triathlon to consume your life.

Because there's a difference between making triathlon part of your lifestyle and making triathlon your entire lifestyle.

And I think that's an important distinction.

For me, anyway, triathlon is important.

It's a significant part of my life.

But it's not the whole thing.

There are relationships.

There is family.

There is work.

There are other interests.

There is downtime.

There is just being a human being who isn't training.

And I think the sport is actually healthier when it has a place in your life rather than when it takes over your life.

And that probably goes back to sustainability again.

Because if the thing you're doing is constantly competing with everything else you value, eventually something is going to give.

And then there's comparison.

That's another one that's really easy to fall into.

Especially today.

You can go online and see somebody's power numbers.

You can see somebody's race results.

You can see somebody's training volume.

You can see somebody who is swimming six days a week and running 50 kilometres and riding 300 kilometres.

And you're sitting there thinking, "Well, I guess I'm not doing enough."

But you don't know their circumstances.

And you certainly don't know their starting point.

You're comparing your beginning to somebody else's middle.

And that's a pretty easy way to take something that was supposed to add to your life and turn it into a source of stress.

So I think the better question is:

Is what I'm doing sustainable for me?

Not for somebody else.

For me.

And if you get that right, I think some pretty interesting things happen over time.

Obviously, you get fitter.

You get stronger.

Your cardiovascular fitness improves.

You become more capable.

You may race faster.

You may achieve things that you never thought you were capable of.

But I think there are some benefits that go well beyond the physical.

There's confidence.

Not the kind of confidence where you think you're better than somebody else.

It's the confidence that comes from knowing you've done difficult things before.

You know what it feels like to be uncomfortable.

You know what it feels like to have a bad day and keep going.

You know what it feels like to work toward something for months and finally see the payoff.

And there's a sense of structure.

Training gives your week a rhythm.

There are things you do on certain days.

There are goals you're working toward.

And for a lot of people, I think that can be really valuable.

There's also community.

You meet people through triathlon.

You become part of something.

And maybe one of the most interesting benefits is the relationship you develop with aging.

Because when you make endurance training part of your life, you're not just thinking about what you can do this year.

You're thinking about what you want to be capable of five years from now.

Ten years from now.

And maybe that's one of the really powerful things about making triathlon a lifestyle.

You're not simply training for your next race.

You're building a life in which being active, being challenged, learning, adapting and taking care of yourself are normal things that you do.

And I think that's a pretty good lifestyle.

Not because triathlon is somehow the answer to everything.

It isn't.

But because the habits that you develop through the sport—consistency, patience, resilience, flexibility, preparation—can become useful long after the workout is finished.

And maybe that's the real benefit.

The race is temporary.

The fitness comes and goes.

The finish line is one day.

But if you can turn the process of training into something that fits naturally into your life, then you've created something that can stay with you for decades.

And that's a pretty compelling reason to become a triathlete.