STATE OF PLAY
In a world where so much is uncertain at present, Tim’s been reminded, thanks to the power of social media, just how resilient triathletes are
I’ve sat down to write this half-adozen times. The subject, as always, triathlon. The subject, this time, seems faintly ludicrous.
Among the privileges of writing for 220 Triathlon is being afforded a whole month’s grace to write this column; rare headspace in a modern world where content zips by faster than Daniela Ryf on the Queen K. Yet this month, I’ve left it to the last, not merely because of that obstinate truism that writers only function when deadlines strike, but because events in our world are changing by the hour.
By the time you read this, we could be on complete lockdown in our homes, climbing walls and, more literally, climbing walls. Or we could, more wistfully and perhaps wishfully, be atop our favourite Col, breathing lungfuls of Alpine air, laughing at the madness of our existence and swearing to never take the freedom of two wheels or a pair of muddy trail shoes for granted ever again. At the start of this week, the temptation was to write about events cancelled without refunds. Within hours, it seemed snippy and churlish; lost entrance fees paling against loss of freedom, livelihood and life, as direct or indirect consequences of a pernicious foe.
So, I briefly took to Instagram. A rarity for me, but it felt less threatening than another terror scroll through Twitter, and there I stumbled across the aforementioned Ryf attempting front crawl in her bath tub – with fins. I also spotted Lucy Charles-Barclay’s pooch pawing at the handlebars, forelegs bent to be more aero, and David McNamee diarising his lockdown from Girona (porridge and naps, mostly).
Jan Frodeno was offering to host group Zwift rides (for which 2,000 logged on), while, fittingly for a world spun on its head, notorious indoor training fiend Lionel Sanders was chasing Strava King of the Mountain ‘crowns’.
I’ll accept that whatever filter’s used on Instagram, it’s routinely a rose-tinted one, and these characters are not immune to having private meltdowns (unrelated to a turbo set), yet there’s something far more compelling about these posts right now than the usual ‘smashing-up a training day’ tidbits.
While ours is oft seen as a solitary pursuit, never has leaning in to offer and receive mental and emotional support – to make human connections – been more critical. If it offers release from the pressure cooker of a moment, it could be as much an elixir as exercise itself.
It’s also a reminder that in a world where so much is uncertain, there are still fundamental truths: Triathletes are resilient. Dogs add value.
The Italian football manager Arrigo Sacchi called football the most important of the least important things in life. For triathletes, read the same inherent love of swimming, running and cycling. We don’t really credit how important it is until it is stripped from us, but we’ll surely cherish it all the more when it returns.
“Never has leaning in to offer and receive support been more critical”