Questions I get asked, over and over and over …..
Q: “When are you doing your next marathon?”
What I’m thinking: “I gave up doing stand alone marathons because I don’t really like running enough to do all the miles needed to perform well at this distance. And, besides, my thing is ‘triathlons’, and just because they both end in ‘on”, and running, doesn’t mean they are the same thing!”
What I’d like to say: “Never!” (Sometimes I add “again”). Or, “I don’t do stand alone marathons any more.” Or, “End of June” (or whenever my next Ironman is, because, actually, I am doing a marathon at the end of that race, after all.)
What I really say: “You mean triathlon?”
Q: “Uh, yeah, when’s your next triathlon?”
What I’m thinking: “Do you mean my next Ironman, or my next race, which is some local little sprint no one’s ever heard of and only lasts an hour and doesn’t seem nearly so impressive?”
What I’d like to say: Just give them a list of all the races I have planned for the upcoming year,but I know that would seem way too organized and obsessive, and as a triathlete, that’s certainly the last thing I want to appear, because, of course, I actually am far too organized and obsessive for most people’s taste or even comprehension.
What I do say: “Well, I’ve got the/an Ironman coming up end of June (alternative: in Coeur d’Alene.” See that conversational choices I leave in there? If I provide both the place and the time, then the conversation might stop; so I leave them the chance to ask “where”, or “when”, and I can keep talking about my obsession. And what about the choice between “an” vs. “the” Ironman. Technically, among IM geeks, “the” Ironman is the one in Hawaii (more on that later), whereas “an” is confusing, because most people don’t know there is more than one. So, this usually leads to more questions, more chances to obsess out loud.
Q: “Oh, I didn’t know there was more than one, other than that one, where, in Hawaii.”
What I want to say: “Yeah, Ironman is a world-wide brand, a private corporation which sponsors at least 24 Ironman races around the world, including the one in Hawaii. which they label as their ‘World Championship’.
What I do say: Usually, I don’t get to say anything, because they immediately go onto the next question, the one that haunts anyone who ever admits to doing a triathlon.
Q: “Have you ever done the one in Hawaii?”
This is actually easy, because I usually just say, “Yes.” But, before I had done it, I would have to reply, of course, with, “No.” And it is that little call and response, repeated over and over, that is the World Triathlon Corporation’s biggest marketing ploy. They don’t have to sell their race to us; our everyday interactions do it for them. By being first, by having Julie Moss fall down drunkenly, crawling while she lost her lead in the last 200 yards back in 1981, by getting their sob stories up to Emmy quality on NBC the past two decades, the general public equates triathlon with the Hawaiian Ironman. By restricting access to that race to a select few qualifiers, they ensure that race retains an aura far in excess of its true value, and haunts us every time we even mention an association with triathlon to anyone.
Q: “Now, how does that go again – you bike, then swim, and run, uh, how far?”
What I’m thinking: You can’t possibly imagine what’s involved, even if I tell you the distances and the time it takes, unless you tried to do even one of those events yourself. As a matter of fact, once I tell you, the next words out of your mouth are going to be: “I can’t even imagine that. Really, a marathon!?”
What I want to say: It’s swim, bike, then run. And there’s all sorts of distances, from 400 meters to 3800 meters swimming, 12 mile to 112 miles biking, and 3 miles to 26 miles of running.
What I do say: “Well, first we swim 2.4 miles, then bike 112, and then run 26.2 miles.” Invariably, that last distance produces the query, “What’s that compared to a marathon?” And once that is dealt with, 95 times out of 100, the next comment is:
Q: “Well, I could never do that – I can’t do the swimming.”
What I’m thinking: You and about 300,000,000 people in this country. What is it about swimming that trips people up?
What I want to say: Many people have learned as adults how to swim well enough to succeed in triathlons; if you want to do one, no matter what your background, you can. You just have to make a decision you want to do it, same as you’ve decided you want to brush your teeth every day.
What I actually say: “Yeah, I get that a lot.”
Q: “So how much do you have to train (or workout, or exercise (everyday.)
What I’m thinking: You either won’t believe me, or will think I’m either nuts, superhuman, or dangerously obsessed if I tell you.
What I’d like to say: It depends on where I am in my training cycle, and how much recovery I need from recent workouts, and can widely vary from 30 minutes to seven hours a day. And, some of it is done at a very hard, fast pace, while other times, I’m really taking it easy.
What I do say: “Oh, it comes out to a little less than two hours a day, on average. Can vary depending on the time of year, or what I’m doing that day.
(To Be Cont’d)