Free to Tri: Journey to the Duathlon Age-Group World Championships (T-minus 12 months!)
The final part of my series on getting into triathlon, overcoming ‘unfreedoms’, and being free to finally compete — leading to a qualification for the GB Age-Group Duathlon team.
In the first few weeks after the race I must have checked my emails a thousand times. Not even when I was awaiting my business school acceptance decision was I so unhealthily hooked to my phone, eagerly refreshing the page whilst still elbowing through the swarming masses emerging from the rush hour Tube, sneaking the odd side glance at that frustrating black screen sitting innocently next to my keyboard at work, surreptitiously transporting it to the bathroom to obsess in peace … And then finally, when I had begun to do actual work again -
If you’ve read my previous posts, you might be confused how a 40-minute Parkrunner who hated swimming and cycling might end up actually wanting to compete in triathlon. For some people, the thought of racing might even seem ghastly, and ruinous to the very nature of enjoying sports. But I’ve always enjoyed setting myself difficult goals, and in fact I think we’re built for it. I find I’m happiest when I’m working hard towards a particular purpose. For me, being able to compete in triathlon represents what happens when we’re released from ‘unfreedoms’ like fear, embarrassment, lack of time and lack of self-belief: freedom to enjoy life to the full.
The idea first popped into my head at the London Triathlon in 2018, when I saw a girl in my age group with a flashy “GBR” trisuit. Slick, sleek, professional — that distinctive blue and red lycra whizzing past left me, the uninitiated, my-bike-is-way-too-expensive-for-my-ability triathlon wannabe, with a deep sense of awe. And yet, much to my delight, my run split result turned out to be three whole seconds per kilometer faster! Suddenly, that trisuit went from being 100% unattainable, to something that could one day be mine. MINE. The idea simmered away inside until I made the pledge to myself back in September last year, that I too would qualify to represent my country as an age-grouper, and that trisuit would one day be mine.
What is an age-grouper, I hear you ask? Basically, someone who’s not a professional, but keen ( / crazy) enough to enter competitions and try and beat people of the same age and gender. In other words, it allows all of us who aren’t that good to feel like elite athletes. (Controversially, you could also argue that it’s an exploitative system to make money out of over-keen amateurs. But let’s leave that discussion for another post ).
How do I get to be an age-grouper, you may like to know? The British system is slightly complicated, but essentially you need to enter one of three qualifying races and finish within the top 4 in your age group, plus within a certain percentage of the winner of your age group.
That’s why I found myself at the start-line of the Ashridge Duathlon on a freezing cold morning back in January. It started with a 4:30am alarm. Followed by a pitch-black drive with unwelcome snowflakes pounding the windscreen. A breathless 5k run-turned-mudbath. A frantic 22k bike with icy limbs and inert sausages in place of toes. And a final 2.5k run scrabbling for the finish. Not the most enjoyable of races to say the least, but a productive one: it earned me qualification for the World Duathlon Championships in Amsterdam in September 2020.
So that’s the main goal for now! After a few easy weeks at the end of last season (and a busier-than-expected start to the MBA!), I’ve started getting back into regular training. Excitingly, I’m now being coached by Phazon Triathlon to help me navigate the universe of data-driven training, and strike the tricky balance between improvement and recovery.
Over the next year, I’ll be sharing stories about my preparation for this race, so please subscribe, follow me on Instagram and Strava, and leave comments below if there’s any particular topic you’d be interested in knowing more about. I’d love to answer any questions you might have!
