The Throwdown

Triathletes are the secret Bane of all cyclists. No one can pinpoint why - maybe it is their questionable bike handling skills or penchant for ruining a perfectly good ride by throwing in a swim and a run.

 

Some Tri geeks keep it real (Paul T. and Trev keep it insanely real, in fact I bet the Bento-Box community is jealous of their legit-Cat ½ racing skills) – But Triathletes generally do not transfer into cycling contenders. But how do serious cyclists transfer to Triathlon? The average Tri is biased towards Bike and Run, how hard can it be to avoid drowning and let Aerobic capacity take care of the rest?

 

So the Cold Turkey Tri was born. The premise is simple: take a trained cyclist and throw him in a lake with no prior swim or run practice. Watch cyclist race; see how many "Triathletes" get beaten in the process. Never has such a Naïve and brazenly overconfident act been attempted. We're going to get destroyed.

 

Or are we? One is for certain; it will be a throw down. No-holds-barred. I almost backed down until "Coach Bakke" stepped up and reminded me what Totally Intuitive Training Systems is all about. Never have I been so motivated by an e-mail in my life:

 

Ok, here's what we'll call the throwdown. Let's kill this thing. Whining is for sissies, and sissies we aren't. As long as I don't work till midnight every night this week so I can pick up a race package, I'm in. I don't care if I have to pack till 2am the next day, I'm an investment banker and that's what I do.

Swimming in advance is counter to cold turkey - that's no excuse Bunnin, especially for someone as great a physical talent as yourself. Moving a house is unexpected and therefore might, just might, qualify as an excuse. Swimming capacity, especially when advertised as cold turkey, doesn't. Some tri dweebs start this sport as 38 year old obese smokers recovering from divorce and need life change - you're ahead of that by birth. We're doing it. You're gonna hammer the living shit out of the bike ride, like the pro-in-disguise cyclist you are. I don't care about your swim time, other than it's a positive integer less than infinity, which means you don't drown. I want your bike split to lay waste to the field with no mercy. Your BCBR red blood cell build is looking to slay, and I'm sure they're more numerous than the Russian army now.

I, as a weak man of averages, will try to make all three disciplines with some sort of average performance. I may, if I'm lucky, be chasing you on the run. If I am, be ready for it.

You can read more of BikkingBakke's inspirational thoughts here