Shared joys make a friend, not shared sufferings. -- Friedrich Nietzsche
You'd think that would be true - shared joys, not shared sufferings - but yesterday we went to a picnic with the local tri club and I think it's probably a little bit of both. Of course there are joys when we finish races or have great training sessions, but there's a good bit of suffering in this sport...especially, it seems, the longer you are involved in it and/or the longer the races are that you do. Probably a good third of the athletes there were nursing injuries or just coming off injuries. And oddly enough, sharing injuries is part of the friendship of triathletes too. Talk about how to cope with them, how to avoid them, how to train around them is just part of a gathering of triathletes. Suffering also can make friends.
That being said, I really enjoyed the picnic. It's odd - although I've been involved in online communities of triathletes, such as Beginner Triathlete, I've never gotten involved with real live tri communities until this year. We joined our local tri club, Richmond Tri Club, last year mainly for the discounts on race entries. But this year we've taken advantage of some of the training sessions and now the picnic. It was a lot of fun to talk to people I've seen regularly but never really had a chance to talk to - for example, I recognized a lady that had finished a race at the back-of-the-pack with me a couple years ago (in a hurricane, no less). Obviously we weren't much for talking then, but it was fun to laugh about it yesterday. Even though I view triathlon as generally a solitary sport and I like to train alone (except swimming), I am happy that we are getting more involved in the community aspect of the sport. Besides, they had good beer. :)
Last week's training -
Sunday 7/28 - RACE! (report here) (14:42 minute swim, 65 minute bike, 32:42 minute run)
Monday 7/29 - 75 minute swim (Masters)
Tuesday 7/30 - 4.27 mile run
Wednesday 7/31 - 30 minute swim (OWS); 114 minute bike/1.92 mile run BRICK
Thursday 8/1 - REST (exhausted!)
Friday 8/2 - 2 hour run (10.82 miles)
Saturday 8/3 - 38 minute OWS (at tri club picnic)
No comments:
Post a Comment