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The unique challenges, experiences and paradoxes of travelling for triathlon

Let’s start this post with some statistics (courtesy of logging all my flights into ‘App in the Air)- bare in mind that I had only one domestic flight from January to April and apart from a return trip to the Philippines, all my international trips have been since May 31. So far this year:

·      Countries visited: 12

·      Airports frequented: 18

·      Airlines patronised: 9

·      Types of aircraft flown: 11

·      Boarding passes: 35

·      Kilometres travelled by air: 93,310

This is what my first week in Europe looked like

Travel is often (especially describing events past) romanticised; the opportunities of meeting new people, engaging different cultures and (using the old cliché) ‘broadening ones horizons.’ Yes travel is exciting and (mostly) very enjoyable; however, there is often a tendency to become overly mawkish when reflecting on ones adventures.  

Why so down? Why write about travel? Three reasons:

1.  This post was initiallytriggered by an article by pro-cyclist Adam Phealan- it made me think about myown recent experiences of travel.

2.  To address the misconception that triathlon is some sort of junket for those seeking to accrue status credits/frequent flyer points, (#roadtoplatinum) whilst avoiding ‘real hard work.’ Triathlon travel is not some sort of clever ruse to have a ‘fun’ sightseeing experience inconveniently punctuated by a race.

3. To give an insight to the unique intensity of emotions, punctuated by long stretches of boredom and ‘sameness,’ that characterises racing in locations away from home.

Vuelling Airlines takes the award for the smallest gap between rows

In sum, having the opportunity to travel the world is an opportunity I am extremely grateful for; however, it comes with its unique difficulties and perspectives- and is far from the misconception of a low-stress gravy train that some people outside of the sport characterise it as. 

‘Vanilla Travel’ the uniformity of food/accommodation and the isolation that is triathlon travel. As Adam writes:

When you travel to race it can feel like you are ‘missing out’ on seeing the very country you came to race in. You don’t have the luxury of free time. You’re not there to see the place – you’re there to work: to race, to recover, to race again, and to win.

You see hotel rooms, roads, that wheel of the rider in front of you, the massage table, the food halls and the elevators. It’s the same picture ‘recycled’ day after day. That’s the irony. Go somewhere new, to see the same thing again and again.

I have been to Rome twice, yet have never seen the Colosseum. In Turkey, we finished a stage at the famous natural salt baths we’d all seen plastered across Instagram.

It’s a bleak picture, and to an extent a correct one. I’m currently (this post will probably be written in multiple locations) sitting at the airport in Marseille (the final touches to this post were written six weeks later). Indeed my trip to get here was:
1. 1hr drive from Vitoria to Bilbao
2. 2hr flight to Charles de Gualle
3. Grab bags and take a 90min bus across Paris to Orly Airport
4. Spend 1hr rechecking in bags (always a massive hassle when bike bags are involved)
5. 1hr flight to Marseille
6. Bus from Airport to the main train station.
7. Underground train to near hotel

I spent four nights here (Marseille); however, beyond the travel to and from the airport, riding along (the stunning!!) race course and two nights out for dinner, my view was almost uniformly the wall of my dormitory styled room at the ‘Ibis Budget Hotel,’ with the quiet punctuated by the parochial exuberance of the French Tour de France commentary team. 

These ‘vanilla’ surroundings of my tiny room wouldn’t have looked out of place in any country- TV, white walls, white sheets, a rubbish bin, and not much else. It is not the image of ‘travel,’ rather ‘work.’ The tourists desire for exploration clashes with the necessity of ‘putting ones feet up,’ rest, sleep etc- these are a constant before races. I am not alone in spending upwards of 18hrs a day lying in bed, nervously searching for any adverse sign (both muscular and health) that could derail my upcoming race. The paradox of triathlon travel is that in travelling to new and exotic (or at least different) places, we find (and seek) the same culturally-neutral environment, eating the same plain (and safe) western food, and sleeping in the same small lifeless rooms. 

Our room in Latvia- my roommate Sascha is in his running shorts BTW :-)

As Phealen expands:

The racing world is so far removed from the context of our location. Our concerns usually only deal with the race route: the hills, the sprints, and the distance of the stage. We think of the hotels and the food. We simply race and then move on.

This desolate picture of triathlon travel is incomplete- it tells only one half of the story that fits within a broader narrative of the joys, challenges and especially- the inimitability of travelling and racing as a professional athlete. Moreover, the (long) periods of monotony, staring into the bland walls of a hotel room, are contrasted with the brief, but uniquely intense experiences unique to racing. It’s a privilege exclusive earned- hard work and toil are the gateways to this experience. Only by qualifying for, and then valuing a race enough to make these aforementioned sacrifices, gives you the unique perspective of a ‘racer.’

One experience that stuck out was the race briefing for the Burgas ITU European Cup in June. Burgas is Bulgaria’s sixth largest city- apart from the tourist strip near the beach, clearly little had changed since the fall of the Soviet Union. 

The view from my room in Bulgaria

The race briefing is compulsory, it is the first time that athletes generally will see each other pre-race, everyone invariably ends up sizing each other up- who is looking fit or fat, and who is playing mind games (I’ve been told of one story when an Olympic Gold medallist sauntered into race briefing with a coffee and a newspaper- he read the paper the whole way through briefing). Back to Bulgaria-- once the race briefing finished, us athletes were instructed to go from floor 3 to the top floor (14 off memory) to pick up our race packets. This was easier said than done, there was only one extremely small lift and accompanied by an equally tight circular staircase. 

We (James Chronis, Dylan Evans, some Danish guy and I) took off out of the briefing at a similar pace to what we would do when starting the run in a race, managing to get to the lift first- clearly in (good-humoured) spite, someone had pressed the elevator button on every floor meaning we were trailing the faster stair climbers. By the time we had got to the top there was a line of athletes at least 70 long, we were only allowed to go into the room one at a time (each person took at least one if not two minutes to process everything before the next person could come in). In farcical scenes, there was a queue of athletes (including Olympians) sitting on a narrow circular staircase five floors deep, waiting to pick up our race numbers etc, in Bulgaria’s sixth largest city, bonding over the absurdity of the situation.

Secondly, the intensity of emotions in the days, but especially hours before an ITU race is unlike anything I have done. I had a mid-season 5i50 (non-drafting Olympic distance race run by Ironman Corporation), Sarah Lester and I both remarked that even though this was a professional race, with a double ITU Long Course World Champion in the field to boot, compared to an ITU event, this felt like a local Sunday Gatorade race. The ‘athlete lounge,’ (quick digression) ‘lounge’ is a lose term, in Mauritius it was a small tent, in the Philippines, said ‘lounge’ was barely larger than a family-sized beach tent; regardless, in Riga (Latvia) the athlete lounge was an underground car park. On one hand we had 40 or so female athletes who had just raced, and were getting changed (the eastern-Europeans have quite a liberal attitude towards nudity) and doing their usual debrief with their fellow athletes. Their endorphin-induced exuberance contrasted us males, who all looked like we were attending a funeral. It is in these pre-race moments that any self-awareness/inhibitions dissipate in a sea of race-induced anxiety, self-doubt, and adrenalin. The typical pre-race procedure is that every athlete is introduced in order of his or her ranking; from there they choose their position on the pontoon. If it is a full field (75) this process can take an (especially from the athletes perspective) agonisingly long time! ITU, in their infinite wisdom have a special soundtrack just to assuage the risk of any athlete being in a ‘stable’ mental condition pre-race- essentially it is a drum-beat pulsating at a tempo to mimic a heartbeat.

Standing on the pontoon, looking around you, waiting for others to take their place, the sadistic drum-beat tone in the background, athletes peeing in their tri-suits (and not giving a stuff whether anyone sees)— the previous hours, pre, during, and immediately post-race more than account for those days of pre-race monotony. 

Where others search for such an ‘intensity’ through artificial means (alcohol/drugs)- in triathlon one cannot avoid being engulfed in them, sharing this organic experience with people who have gone through similar processes and sacrifices to reach this point- there is no need for alcohol to lubricate the environment, to bring people together. Looking at all the athletes after the race you would think the whole field had known each other for years, and were all close friends.

So what is the point I am trying to make? In a rather rambling way, it can probably be best summarised three-fold:

1. The paradox of triathlon travel is that in travelling to new and exotic locations, we invariably find ourselves in the same ‘vanilla’ environment, in cheap/small 3-star western hotels, eating the same plain food and watching the same TV shows on our laptops. The demands of racing mandate this search for safe familiarity.

2.  In spite of this, the experiences of racing, and the hours surrounding it, are unique to that of a professional triathlete. The intensity of emotions and the bonds of fellow athletes’ shared experiences make such travel so rewarding and exhilarating.

3.   The uniqueness of triathlon travel is further underscored by the people one travels with, and race against. The intensity of emotions is the most pure and organic, there is no need for any artificial help- we could be anywhere in the world (and trust me, they find some weird places to put on races!). Without these shared bonds of fellow athletes, no matter how exotic and exciting the location- the experience of racing would be nowhere near as exhilarating, intense and, in hindsight- rewarding.

I’ll end with Phealan’s closing lines:

We may not travel as travel is usually intended, but the rewards are still there- in these glimpses, these flashes- flashes that stay with you forever. And if you make the effort, if you look up from the road now and then, there is always something to see. THIS is racing!