I am a Triathlete, I am NOT Barbie!

This weekend did not start well. Firstly I have a neck with more knots than a coconut mat and a physio who completely unreasonably doesn’t work bank holidays. I have no cycling shoes because they can’t be delivered until May so I still have the pedal equivalent of stabilisers and if I want tri specific ones I can either pay £250 or have some pink and white ones. I have no running shoes because the most well-known local running shop seems to think that “minimalist” is for crazy barefoot hippies who do triathlon in white muslin dresses making daisy chains as they skip through it. I could order them online but the pair that was recommended only comes in one colour.
..................the most gut wrenching shade of 70s pink I have ever seen!  

Don’t get me wrong, Mizuno, Giant, Specialized, Adidas, Selle et al…… for the most part your products are awesome, I know because I own and use them. However just because I have ovaries does NOT mean I want to get sweaty, muddy, wet and on the odd occasion bloody; wearing something that would blend into Barbara Cartland's wardrobe…..

 

 

So if you could possibly take the following list into your next product planning meeting that would be super!

What women want:

1. We want to go faster, period! (........no forget we have those, we've been dealing with them for thousands of years, we do not need white sports kit to prove we can.)
2. We want to look like we could go faster just by using it / putting it on!
3. We want something that does not squeeze, chafe, batter or assume we don’t actually have any “lady bumps”.
4. We want to look like Helen Jenkins or Chrissie Wellington NOT Barbie or Barbara Cartland.
5. We want to look and feel like we could go as fast as Helen Jenkins or Chrissie Wellington even if (which is highly likely) we can’t.
6. The nations of the world do not generally send their athletes out to compete on the world stage wearing pink…… there is a reason for this, they want them to win!
7. We want to vomit because we’ve trained or raced so hard the lactic acid in our bodies requires us to eject our stomach contents, we do NOT want to feel like vomiting every time we go to put on our footwear just by looking at it.
8. We want to go over to that hot triathlete bloke, even if he is called Ken, and NOT have him say “Hey Barbie.....”
9. Did I mention we want to go faster!? (Maybe spend your “man” hours there rather than on pink stitching......)
10. I want to own a bike tool with more “tools” on it than I will ever know how to use, this does NOT include diamantes….
11. I want light, flexible, windproof reflective bike gloves that keep my fingers from being frozen to my handlebars as I speed downhill faster than the average family car....... Pink does not keep them any warmer.
12. I’m busy getting better at three different sports, I do not have time to stand at the sink scrubbing mud out of an all white outfit. I did not drive to the gym in my Chelsea tractor, spend 10mins not breaking a sweat on the cross trainer while considering if my cuticles looked a bit ragged, down a wheatgrass shot and come home to then give my “kit” to the cleaner because it needs the Channel No5 washing out of it.
13. I want to be able to bolt things onto my bike (because yes although I have the body of a weak and feeble woman I can generally muster the strength to use said bike tool) that do not make the black and red carbon frame groan with the shame of it. (Said black and red frame is actually a man’s because I refuse to pay that much money for a colour I hate and am prepared to pedal harder and have shoulders that ache a little sooner because of the compromise.)
14. I do not want to pay £300 pounds extra for said frame so it is NOT PINK!......or any other shade of condescending pastel!
15. FYI colours which are “faster” include red, black, royal blue, even the odd bit of gold or EVEN the odd bit of 80s neon. Colours which should stay in a Laura Ashley shop are PINK, white and pastel!

- Don’t get me wrong, we all love a bit of Laura Ashley, it conjures up pictures of English picnics, elderflower cordial and walks by the river on a summer’s day.
I think their marketing department would however agree; it does not generally conjure up images of the blood, sweat, pondweed and screeching tyre tracks familiar to modern triathlon….

They don’t sell wall paper patterns called “mud splatter” and nor would you expect them to. Likewise I don’t want to walk into a bike shop and buy a saddle that’s had thousands of “man” hours spent on making it fit my "lady parts" to then have somebody stitch a pink heart onto it……it clashes with the red and black, does not inspire me to stand on my pedals lest someone sees it and therefore does not make me go faster!

I am tired (Maybe because I just biked 20km, swam 1.5Km and if I could have bought some trainers this weekend might have just been for a run....) of going into shops and hearing "Yeah women often tell us that...." Super, so if we follow the principle that "the customer is always right" why are manufacturers not listening? Are we not shouting loud enough, are they hard of hearing or are we too busy with the swim, bike, run thing to take on another fight? Maybe I'm wrong, maybe some women do want a bit of pink to offset the algae, brighten up the brown or remind them that they have ovaries and should probably be at home making the dinner not out in the dark with the rain stinging their face making sure that next race is just a bit easier. Here's a thought.....

WHY NOT ASK US!?

Triathlon is not ladylike, it’s quite hard to swim in a corset, an ankle length skirt is not terribly easy to cycle in and I think we’ve moved past the point where women should only run for 200m lest they over exert themselves.

*Look I know it's a bit mean but I just can't do it in pink..........*

...........................SO PLEASE JUST STOP IT!!!!!!

Physio Trauma.......

There was a time in my life that I didn’t have a physio……… I refrain from saying “need” because judging by how broken I apparently am I have probably always “needed” one.

I currently have a three person “entourage”…….
A personal trainer who specialises in corrective exercise and 500 ways to inflict squats on you. A sports massage lady with the world’s strongest thumbs and an actual physio who pretends to be the most benevolent of the three but is becoming more brutal with each session and now refers to me as his “weekly stress ball”. Between the three of them there are some weeks, like last week, that I resemble one of the signs of abuse pictures we were given at college. Bruised ribs, bruised inner thighs what look suspiciously like grip marks round my upper arms and a particularly pleasant physio session which was the result of “over recruiting my pec minor, pec major and anterior deltoid”…… Well you can Google where they are but trust me you don’t want the weight of a fully grown man pressing his thumbs into them or the resulting bruises!
Also, note to self: Don’t accidentally apply biofreeze to recently shaved armpit 2mins before you have to dash out on the school run….. even less fun! :-S

All that and being generally accident prone; smacking my shins on my pedals on a regular basis and losing a fight with the iron which has left me looking like I tried to slash my wrists has all in all left me avoiding Drs surgeries, casualty departments and group changing areas like the plague for fear of someone asking if I need to have a little chat…..

It’s not just the pain you have to put up with and weirdly it’s often a kind of pleasure pain thing, it’s the trauma of having another person poke, prod and stretch out the naked parts of you that you may or may not like the least. The boys find it amusing when I say “I think we need to discuss boundaries…..” because they have both known me long enough now that we pretty much don’t have any. There’s also the underwear trauma, the hair removal trauma and the correct level and smell of moisturiser to apply beforehand dilemma. Lost!? Ok, let me explain……..

Two of the “team” I traumatise on a regular basis with varying degrees of nudity. With another woman; on the one hand they’ve got what you’ve got, it’s not usually about how attractive you are, it’s about being judged as a woman by a woman. They look at your chipped nail varnish and register “no effort there then….” With a bloke it’s a whole different ball game and half the time they’re oblivious or at least you hope they are. You can get obsessed by what is physio appropriate underwear and what isn’t. It needs to errr hold you in whether you’re lying down or rolling around. The last thing you need to think about when holding back the ocular leakage, gripping the pillow and thinking of England is that something is falling out of where it shouldn’t…. You need to leave them enough “access” without being too exposed, you need “nice” underwear without it being well errr “Niiiiice!” You don’t want to wear massive granny knickers because you don’t want them thinking you always wear big granny knickers but you obviously can’t wear anything slinky because there’s a remote chance they’re going to find them attractive. You don’t want to wear something that seems like a come on but you don’t want to be seen as wearing something that resides in the Bridget Jones department either and let’s face it Jessica Ennis has ruined it for most women trying to rock the sports bra look.

 

The first time I needed the physio to sort my hip out resulted in an emergency trip to M&S and utter disbelief that they didn’t have a “physio appropriate” underwear section, only slutty or granny. The result being the emptying of entire underwear draw, half an hour trying on every pair of pants I have in my possession, 48hrs of not eating wheat or any other form of carbohydrate in a bid to miraculously turn into a Victoria Secret’s model overnight, hair removal, moisturiser, 50 trips to the loo and in the end he told me to leave my shorts on! What do you mean “leave them on”!!?? I have spent HOURS choosing these pants….. I WANT YOU TO SEE THEM! Ok the last part was in my head before you ring some sort of physio helpline but SERIOUSLY do you know how much stress this appointment induced!?

…..and before you say it, it’s not just a girl thing! Thankfully for the chiropractor involved, a bloke once told me about having to stop off at a mate’s house on the way to an appointment and having to ask if he could “borrow” a pair of pants!

It’s not only the clothing issue you need to think about. Removing your body hair to that of a 12yr old because while you hope and pray that they “just don’t see that” they’re human and there’s a tiny place in the back of your mind where you just know somewhere there is a physio staff room where the stories of “I had this right hairy Mary today……..” just come out and clearly they’re going to refuse to treat you if your toe nail varnish hasn’t been freshly applied.

Quite frankly there’s been less pre date preparation before now. Obviously physio is a bloke and probably has absolutely no idea of the stress involved. Occasionally he makes a comment that I’ve put moisturiser on because my arm slips out of his vice like grip but will have no idea that there were three perfume choices lined up on the bathroom sink before a final decision and application. Like pants they kind of fall into the same categories of “demure” “everyday” “added sparkle” and “about as subtle as Body Shop Fuzzy Peach in a school corridor in the 1990s”

Then there’s the question of do you put make up on or don’t you? Do you try and do that I’ve put it on but don’t want it to look like I’ve put it on thing….. if you do and it rubs off all over the towel it’s one thing, if you have to point out you’ve accidently rubbed bronzing powder all over his perfectly ironed white poloshirt while he had you in the physio equivalent of a head lock then it’s another. Again this stuff doesn’t really happen with women, they know that you haven’t just flown in from the south of France or they wear a more practical colour. Men seem to think you’ve miraculously picked up some “winter sun” in the middle of January….. he’s already moaned about my pre physio prep involving a shower which I’ve let him think is a “fresh from the pool thing” and my lack of time management and not being able to use a hairdryer on my borderline afro hair resulting in a wet shirt, so have decided to skip bronzing and accept the lectures on including iron rich food in my diet.   

 I am pretty sure that I and no doubt other victims clients have gritted their teeth and blanched their knuckles through 30mins of torture therapy, leaving grip marks on treatment tables and tear stains on pillows in the hope of easier movement and faster times. (Triathletes don’t cry by the way, and any illusion to it is referred to as “ocular leakage”.) When you hear terms like “significant dysfunction” though you do wonder how it is you even manage to stand upright…….

 

Being injured is by far the most frustrating thing any athlete will face. Unless like a few mere mortals such as Rodger Federer you have remained perfectly balanced, dysfunction and injury free there will be times; usually just when you want to push forwards, that you have to use all of your strength to hold yourself back. Triathlon uses every muscle in your body, you’re not just dealing with injuries and overuse associated with one sport but with three. This also comes with unexpected advantages, you can swap tired legs on the bike for tired arms in the pool, you can exchange the impact of running for the low impact of cycling. You have to mix it up but you also have to listen to your body. Cross training has massive benefits but overtraining leads nowhere. The most important thing you can learn is that when you’re training hard recovery days are AS important as training days. If you don’t let your body rest you don’t let it adapt, if you don’t adapt you don’t get faster or stronger and you’re far more likely to get injured.

I have damaged, injured, abused and needed correction to just about every part of my body. But here’s the amazing thing, not only is your body a smart machine, it is one of the strongest most resilient things ever created. There’s not a human invention out there that can keep up with the stresses and strains we put our bodies through on a daily basis. Add into that a sport or three and the need to train on the edge of injury to promote that physical adaptation that moves you forwards and you realise what a miraculous thing you take for granted each and every day.

I guess the message is to be grateful for what you have and love the skin you’re in.

Bikes and lady bumps

I love my new bike, I really do. It cost more than my car, it gets cleaned more than my nails, weighs less than my handbag and I paid £300 more for an upgraded spec that I probably don't need just to get the colour I liked.

This foray into "road" biking has seen me ditch the scratty bits of uncoordinated mud splattered gear that I was more than happy to crash about on my mountain bike in for *cough* sleek, colour coordinated lycra and I find it increasingly annoying that my once coveted Giro helmet is blue and does not match the black red and white set up.
I've managed to beg, borrow and possibly steal some tri bars from a friend who used them for an ironman and once I manage to get the compromise right between aerodynamics and not crushing my "lady bumps" into a pose usually found on page 3, they'll do more than look the part.

One thing that does irk me however is that for something so beautiful, responsive and not to mention expensive; the damage it's doing to my errrrr lady parts is not something I can fully express without the use of a four letter expletive.......

Apparently part of the "problem" is my less than "committed riding style" meaning I am not distributing my weight effectively between my arms and feet, my errr lady parts are not meant to be the so called "third spoke in the wheel".....
Not having the arms of Jessica Ennis and the legs of Laura Trott there is pretty much going to be a "third spoke" in my "wheel" for the immediate future anyway but right now that wheel has a "flat tyre"!
Even with padded leggings and the practically sacrilegious addition of a *whispers* gel cover there was only moderate relief.
One suggestion was that "maybe you could ride it in a more ladylike fashion?" Errrrr did I wake up in 1890s!? Granted I probably need to stop throwing it about like a mountain bike but seriously!?
Another answer is that my so called "saddle" is actually the sporn of Satan himself!

Either way the chances of me becoming "lady like", developing Olympic arms & legs or learning to ride side saddle by July are negligible, the one thing that is certain is that the saddle of Satan is GOING!

 



Step forward (without doing so in the manner of John Wayne) the most significant development in preventing pain to the female anatomy since the invention gas and air!

.........Now if bike manufacturers would get their head's around the fact that just because I am a girl I've not wanted a pink bike / pink shoes or a PINK seat since I removed the tassels from the handle bars and the spokey dokeys from my wheels, that would be super!