triathlete, but familiar and important enough that it is constantly on their mind: bricks.
Bricks refers to the practice of transitioning between each discipline in the race: from swimming to cycling,
from cycling to running. You’ve got to try and do all this as quickly as possible, of course, and the transition
has been described as the fourth discipline in the triathlon. Valuable minutes can be lost or made up here, as
you rush to change your clothes and get your kit for the next part of the journey. While nothing could have
prepared me for the intense strangeness of these transitions in the actual race, they’re intended to at least
run you through something like it.
Doing that is incredibly hard – far harder than it sounds. The difficulty of the change can’t be described as
tiredness or pain, those familiar and sometimes pleasant results of exercise. Instead, it is closer to
forgetting; your legs do really feel like bricks, unresponsive to you willing them to switch from cycling into
running, simply not moving in the way you’d expect or want them to. It doesn’t get easier with practice, but
you get better at it – or at least become more familiar with it.
As you look through the library of training plans that are everywhere on the internet, everything you read
stresses the importance of the taper: the point before the race at which you cut down the intensity of your
workouts and give your body the opportunity to get ready for the big moment. But all of the guides stress
that this should happen at least a few days before the race. The problem is, I don’t have a few days. So, I
instead just do nothing for the couple of days before the race.
Triathlons are expensive. If you’re starting totally from scratch, you will need to buy a bike, get yourself
some decent running shoes and invest in a wetsuit and a trisuit. The wetsuit’s job is obvious, but the trisuit
serves as a base layer that you can wear underneath for the swim and then which will suit for both cycling
and running. I used Zone 3’s kit for both, and while there was no outfit in the world that could have made
me look or feel good while doing a triathlon, they did their absolute best and fulfilled their role perfectly. It
fitted like a second skin, and more specifically the skin of a lithe fish.
On your bike: the cyclists whizz past during the
second leg of the raceKit assembled and unusual clothes on, the triathlon properly begins when you (looking utterly ridiculous in
your wetsuit, goggles and swimming cap combo) are funnelled through the queues in your wave, and into
the “swim briefing”, where someone briefs you through the various things to do to ensure everything goes
well.
At this point, my nerves are ablaze, and to calm them down I’m trying to remember that I have done these
distances before. But I find myself only really able to think about how little I’ve done those distances, and
visualising the many ways in which this could go horribly wrong. I had thought that there might be a sense
of solidarity between us all – dozens of alien-looking fools who had voluntarily put ourselves forward for this
- but, as I look around at people’s goggled faces, they glare back. One thing’s clear: we are competitors.
After being asked to bear hug the person next to you and geed up with some call and response, you’re off