"Anything Sam Cooke did, I would do...apart from getting shot in a motel room by a hooker."
Rod Stewart
@MaccaNow 1/3/2013
Double header long ride weekend. 110miles today down to the#wollongong. Perfect day for it. 120miles set for tomorrow.
I think you get the point. Triathlon can be a big money sport. In fact, this year on the pier in Kona, one of my fellow Transition volunteers remarked, after watching the third bike in a row equipped with electronic gear-shifting ( about $2000 over it's mechanical counterpart on your bike and my bike) that, "It looks like triathlon is becoming the sport of the 1%ers."
Well, at that moment, wondering if one needs a $10,000 bike to make it in this sport, or looking at Chris McCormack's tweet above, the ability to ride farther than New York to Boston this weekend, it may seem like we mortals will never have the money or ability to be great. But I believe we don't measure ourselves by what others do, particularly professional triathletes, unless of course you're talking about your age group buddy who always seems to nip you in the last kilometer of your local sprint tri. You never did it before, why start now? You are your own athlete.
Remember the good old days? The days if you wanted to lighten your bike and it only cost $1 a gram, and it didn't cost $375 dollars to ship your bike to the race site? And a new pair of running shoes wasn't 90 or more dollars? In reality, after you discount the manufacturer's bias that if you buy the...fill in the blank...that Pro Triathlete XYZ uses you'll ride like XYZ, and you have a good but not necessarily great bike, a standard power meter, etc., most of us would think you're set.
We measure our performance against our own past, previous races and work outs, times for certain distances, etc. We get our successes, our thrills, the first time our bike split is under 3 hours for a 70.3 event or we have the quickest transition times in the age group, something you have been focusing on for two years. This example may be the best one as it's completely free! It only speaks to how serious you are in the sport and how much you're willing to practice, to experiment and learn, effort (not $$) that you've put in before you actually race.
So, do I think you need to spend cubic dollars to be a speedster, or do work outs meant for others that will surely put you in the doctor's office? Nope. There's room for everybody in this sport.
Well, at that moment, wondering if one needs a $10,000 bike to make it in this sport, or looking at Chris McCormack's tweet above, the ability to ride farther than New York to Boston this weekend, it may seem like we mortals will never have the money or ability to be great. But I believe we don't measure ourselves by what others do, particularly professional triathletes, unless of course you're talking about your age group buddy who always seems to nip you in the last kilometer of your local sprint tri. You never did it before, why start now? You are your own athlete.
Remember the good old days? The days if you wanted to lighten your bike and it only cost $1 a gram, and it didn't cost $375 dollars to ship your bike to the race site? And a new pair of running shoes wasn't 90 or more dollars? In reality, after you discount the manufacturer's bias that if you buy the...fill in the blank...that Pro Triathlete XYZ uses you'll ride like XYZ, and you have a good but not necessarily great bike, a standard power meter, etc., most of us would think you're set.
We measure our performance against our own past, previous races and work outs, times for certain distances, etc. We get our successes, our thrills, the first time our bike split is under 3 hours for a 70.3 event or we have the quickest transition times in the age group, something you have been focusing on for two years. This example may be the best one as it's completely free! It only speaks to how serious you are in the sport and how much you're willing to practice, to experiment and learn, effort (not $$) that you've put in before you actually race.
So, do I think you need to spend cubic dollars to be a speedster, or do work outs meant for others that will surely put you in the doctor's office? Nope. There's room for everybody in this sport.
Hear hear!
ReplyDeleteYou are always dead on and insightful.
ReplyDeleteSpot on! Now where's my electronic shifting.....
ReplyDelete