Triathlon: Where Perfection Goes to Die
What my sport has taught me about life.
If you’ve been involved with @TriathleteBenny on Instagram, More About More in the podcasting world, or have read from this account before (if yes to any, then thanks! Give me a follow for more relatable multisport and mental health-centric content), then I’ve probably mentioned I’m a big triathlon guy.
I’m currently a member of Colorado State University’s Triathlon club, a marketing specialist for Rocky Mountain Multisport/Runners Roost Fort Collins (the premier spot for anything and everything swim-bike-run), and a graduate journalism student at the university.
I say all of this to emphasize that I’m pretty into what I do. I like triathlon, I like selling triathlon, and I like writing about triathlon. Frankly, “I like” statements don’t quite do it justice; I love triathlon — there’s something addictive and endearing about every day consisting of new workouts, variation in sport, bike rides (if you haven’t gone on a bike ride with friends, then, man, HAVE I GOT AN EXPENSIVE PASTTIME FOR YOU!) and, to be honest, lots of food; amongst other cool things. I’m probably hooked for life. Triathlon is pretty cool.
Most humans find something like this in their lives to pour their heart and soul into. My mother is currently doing it with knitting (shoutout @TKnitsBoutique). My Dad does it with his job, with Duolingo, and probably with his love for my mother, respectively. Some friends find their passion to be their job (I’m not quite that good yet with triathlon, boo-boo, I know), some friends find it outside of the office, and some friends meander in between phases and passions. It’s just ‘cool’ to have a thing to throw around at the water cooler, to flex at the 10-year high school reunion, or to help convince your parents that you’re not just 22 and eating too much oatmeal for no damn good reason. It’s cool to have a passion!
That’s why I love triathlon. And when we love things that we’re passionate about, we tend to try and do it to the best of our ability. This means going above and beyond to have the best materials to do what you do, to be in the best shape to do what you do, and to let the world know about your mission to succeed in what you do. It’s what I’ve set out to do with triathlon, like countless professionals before me. In fact, we get lost in this buzz of success and striving for greatness. Losing or underperforming becomes nearly unacceptable — if not impossible — in our eyes, while doing everything right, winning, and crushing our goals becomes the, somehow, realistic scenario.
We’d rather win at all costs than lose slightly.
When failure isn’t an option, perfection becomes a worthwhile adversary — an eventually cavernous rabbit hole that, again, countless athletes before me have fallen into.
Collin Chartier is one of those athletes. If you’ve been involved in triathlon, especially the past couple of weeks, then that name may sound familiar: he tested positive for erythropoietin (EPO), the well-known illegal stamina enhancer. See the article below:
(side note: when The New York Times writes an article about triathlon, us triathletes know we’ve collectively fucked up, big time. We’re not that popular.)
I won’t bore you with the details since there are so many articles already out about this, but the just is this:
Collin admitted to getting lost in his training and pursuit for winning — at all costs. Doping become a necessary hurdle to jump if it meant a possibility of domination.
On one hand, it’s hard to fault Collin and so many others like him in their respective goals and missions — why settle for good when the possibility of greatness is right around the corner? I actually wrote an article some months back that broke down this paradigm of taking success for granted and not settling for ‘normal’, which may help inform this conversation a bit more. See below:
But, on the other hand: there’s a stark difference between the likes of winning and ‘winning at all costs.’ Workplace professionals, artists, and athletes alike must take heed of the stories of Chartier, Lance Armstrong, Ben Johnson, and so many more — so as to not fall deep into the toxicity of winning above all else, whether that’s financial gain, fame, or pure victory.
But this isn’t an article about the errors in us in regard to winning — this is about what we cannot control.
In that same token of elite athletes, I actually happen to live with a professional triathlete — Jake Bamforth. Jake is an exceptional athlete, an astounding roommate, and one of my best friends and mentors. Even though this dude kicks my ass in about every workout we’ve done together, he never fails to stop and point out how I could fix my climbing position, make gains in TT aerodynamics, or improve my swim catch and pull. The dude is detail-oriented with a capital D, dotting his I’s and crossing his T’s to ensure he’s able to compete at the highest level he’s capable of.
In the week before our final competition of the season, USA Triathlon Collegiate Nationals in Lake Lanier, Georgia, Jake spent somewhere between 10–20 hours working on his TT and Road bikes for the Olympic and Draft Legal races, respectively. Everything from latex tubes, taping holes that could catch air in the bike, to addressing every possible issue that could arise on the course and who could challenge him. He actually looked up the Strava segments of a comparable athlete from a previous race and compared…every-individual-one. He’s a madman, in the best way possible, when it comes to making marginal gains in sports. To put it simply, Jake is dedicated to triathlon and the possibility of having everything dialed. Like seriously, everything. That Strava stuff is legitimate craziness.
“Yee-Haw,” Jake would add-in — he’s a big yee-haw guy to fill silence. It’s pretty hilarious and awesome, actually.
Flash forward to race day, and Jake comes out of the Draft Legal race swim in the top ten, capping off an excellent first leg of the race. I recall watching him throw his body over and bike, into his clipped-in cycling shoes, and then somehow catching a shoe that threatened to fall off the bike onto the tarmac — all in one movement. It was like I was watching a Michael Jordan performance in the late 1980s, like when Bird had that famous quote “…That was God Disguised as Michael Jordan.”
I sprinted around the course with my fellow teammates, waiting for Jake to crest the first of many hills on the course, dive-bombing the descent and cornering hard, certainly fighting for a higher placing. This was the race weekend we had agreed was our most important goal since the season started last August — this was it. Showtime. We HAD to perform; Jake HAD to perform. All eyes sat on the first hill of the course, watching intently as several powerful young men bulldozed their way through the course.
Jake didn’t crest the hill. I remember panicking, not seeing him shoot through the course with the draft pack, wondering where the f***ing hell my roommate was. It wasn’t like him to lose so much time, so early in the race. This was a guy who prided himself on some of the fastest transitions between wetsuit-to-bike and bike-to-run in the nation, so it was unlike him to be wasting so much time rolling through the bike course.
A moment later, I saw my other teammate, Cristian Vasquez, shoot through the course in the same green-and-gold kit Jake was in, knowing inherently that something was undoubtedly amiss. I remember the next sequence like a horrible nightmare; sprinting over the hill as more racers rocketed up the hill, while a lonely black and red Specialized Tarmac sat on the ground, in pieces, next to a young man in a CSU kit, sitting beside it.
Jake was holding his bike — which consisted of some broken wheel spokes, a snapped derailleur, and a broken chain. Jake’s face was emotionless — not sadness, no anger, no…anything. It was bare, like a man who had done everything he possibly could but couldn’t do enough.
Jake’s race was over less than 15 minutes into it, that morning. Despite dialing everything to utmost perfection on his race day agenda…perfection, or, finishing the race in this instance, proved too elusive.
Seeing my roommate, the man who taught me everything I know about triathlon, sitting helplessly with his bike at the bottom of the hill, at a race he had fantasized about winning for years…fucking sucked. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right. It was soul-sucking.
That day was a reminder that no matter how much we read every chapter, smooth every ruffled edge, and address every minute detail possible, life finds a way to create new issues. Life finds a way to make something that, on paper, should be near-perfect…fail.
The following day, enveloped in agony and distress from the mishappenings of the day before, Jake had a planet-sized chip on his shoulder for the Olympic race — going on to soar through the swim, cruise through the bike course, and cap it off with a gutsy run — finishing in 10th overall place. The man earned a podium in the final triathlon of his collegiate career, at the biggest stage, nonetheless. Inspiring. My teammate Cristian and I were soon to follow, finishing 19th and 23rd, respectively, with a large field of male and female CSU triathletes scoring high. Our Rams took home the 5th Overall Team Place of the day, capping off the second consecutive 5th overall placing for CSU, and paving the way for a new paradigm of excellence for the future of Fort Collins triathlon.
Throughout the weekend, and thinking more on the state of modern-day triathlon — everything from the lengths athletes go to win to the highs and lows that come from racing such strenuous events — I’ve come to the realization that this sport is not for the faint of heart. Nor is it for the athlete that desires to count every macronutrient, have each tube filled to exactly 86 PSI, or get over 10 hours of sleep every night. I’ll be the first to admit that I’ve been every example of that Type-A athlete before, and have gotten lost in the deep end of nuclear levels of specificity with my diet, body composition, and race setup.
I’m not alone.
There’s something profoundly interesting about the way that endurance sports seem to make us more intricate and detailed with our overall selves — it’s an element of this lifestyle that I plan on exploring in great detail (ironic, I know) throughout my life. However, by that same token, triathlon finds itself somewhere different than the likes of cycling, running, swimming, skiing — etc. They probably all deserve their own unique pedestals of expression and shouldn’t be compared and scrutinized in juxtaposition with one another as they are in 2023 — but…triathlon. Something unique is going on here.
I’ve been around athletes of all disciplines, shapes, sizes, skill sets — you name it. I’ve interviewed athletes that come from the all-or-nothing approach; I’ve watched athletes inject themselves with things that probably don’t have a place within a human body’s natural ecosystem; I’ve slept with athletes that have resting heart rates of 35 bpm. I’ve seen a lot, not it all — but would consider myself uniquely in tune with the modernity of multisport. It’s complicated, chaotic — it’s messy, to be honest. Triathlon exists in this wonderful paradigm of chaos that consistently propels it to the frontier of sports science excellence, yet buffers the sport far from an everyday news headline.
Why? Because triathlon is messy. It’s dirty, and it’s not always planned out excellently — I’ve run on 10k courses of my Olympic races that were far short (or far over) the actual distance — but no one ever truly complains. At the end of the day, we swim hard, we race bikes, and we run our butts off, and the first people to cross that line are the stories we take home. There are always going to be changes in the course, and unexpected adversities that come with race day, no matter of your sport — think about the recent events at the Boston Maraton for Eliud Kipchoge, a man considered the unequivocally best marathon runner of all time.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/18/sports/eliud-kipchoge-boston-marathon.html
Shit happens. Injuries pop up out of seemingly nowhere, race mechanical issues can occur, and sometimes, above all else, there are things that go on after that starting gun goes off that we cannot control.
I’m here to make the argument that that’s okay. It’s okay to not have everything go as perfectly as it can go.
As someone who has been in a traumatic bike crash, has raced several long course distance triathlons, a marathon, and, well, I don’t know— has experienced a lot of this stuff: I’ve learned to react, adapt, and change my strategies according to what happens on race day. It’s a skill that I’ve learned uniquely from triathlon that I’d argue isn’t taught as well through sports in their individual environment, like running, for instance — you need to get a little bit of craziness in your race day agenda to realize you can actually do things a lot harder than your mind will let you think you can do.
Triathlon has taught me that perfection and sports should not only never be thought of in tandem, but that the further these two are separated, the more impactful session you’ll see from your training, race performances, and overall life dynamics. I’m not saying to throw out, say, shooting for getting 8 hours of sleep a night or trying to use an 80/20 rule for your nutrition — but cut yourself some slack to be a little chaotic now and then. God knows the race course you set out on will be equally chaotic, so it’s only preparing your mental game better for that starting line. Take it from me: I trained for the last eight months with specificity on volume-based Olympic Triathlon training — prioritizing 10–15 hours of cycling per week, 5–7 hours of running, and 2–3 hours of swimming. Because I enjoy running, and testing myself and am a little crazy, I decided to race a marathon on May 7th — about two weeks after USA Triathlon Collegiate Nationals.
On paper, that shouldn’t have happened — my mileage wasn’t high enough, right? Going out the first half marathon in 68 minutes wouldn’t be advised, right? Yes, and, oh for sure. That was dumb. But I was able to stay calm and relaxed throughout, and fought hard to cross that line. It’s something that — shocker — I’ve gotten from triathlon.
First off — if you’re a sports scientist, feel free to disregard some of these messages; these are simply the thoughts and experiences of a young triathlete who’s become somewhat of a shepherd for the sport. Secondly, this is by no means slander on sports regardless of triathlon — I actually f***ing love running; again, just stating my thoughts and trials with all of this.
I’m a firm believer that the complexities thrown my way from triathlon, the rigors of strange, inconsistent race courses and challenges, and the true brutality that comes from 20+ hour weeks of training contributed to this performance.
Yes — I’m making the claim that triathlon, and the world that I’ve come to exist in inside of multisport-related athletics, is messier than a male college freshman dorm hall, and that’s okay. Jake taught me that long ago — one of the first things I remember him telling me was that, well, “Ben! It’s a triathlon! Expect nothing.” It’s seemingly become a messy breeding ground for unique aerobic adaptations, for exciting, new elements of study in endurance sports, and, personally, is just a bit more fun of a way to do things. Have a beer here and there, give yourself a break for not hitting proper paces every workout, and, for the love of god: don’t strive for perfection. Strive to be the best athlete you can be, and tie those laces tight for the journey that ensues.
Yes, triathlon is where perfection goes to die in the sports world, and that might be the only thing perfect about this whole thing.
