Hurrah for Summer

From A Newbie

Tri Talk
New to Tri? No, then the following will be familiar. Otherwise, welcome to a new world. There are many elements to triathlons that a newbie like me gets to know quite quickly – the middle distance, Iron Man, Olympic, Standard, Sprint and as a newbie, my search for the shortest possible option, I find the Super Sprint and Go Tri.
Still, its not that straight forward. A Sprint is not a Sprint and a Super Sprint is not a Super souped up version of the Sprint, its less. It is not about being fast unless you chose to stick to Sprint distance and get fast. Simple.
Enough about the events. This information and Tri talk is oozing across websites and Google requests. This Tri talk is more about the ‘other’ Tri Talk I have come to learn about.
I’ll start with 3, 5, 7, 9 and no, the Goose didn’t drink wine. On first hearing about 3, 5, 7, 9 a few sighs from the lanes showed this was not the most enjoyable exercise. To the blank faces, it was an experience yet to unfold. I now master 9 stokes before taking a breath. I am blue, gasping, unable to do any more lengths but now cognisant that I get to breathe on the 3^rd, then the 5^th, then the 7^th and finally after 9 agonising strokes my lungs get fed with a short brief gasp of air.   
While swimming skills and routines were quite new to me, I did think I knew something about cycling. Nope. Bars are not your handlebars. Wiping something horrid off your show has nothing to do with wiping something horrid off your shoe. Wobbling on your bike is not a precursor to falling off – it might be, but in Tri talk it suggests you’ve not found your core (and oh, we do need to find that core!). Cycling brings lots of numbers as well – for which you need to find the art of reading a watch, counting how many times one foot goes round and then hoping someone tells you what it needs to be. 6 per minute equals some cadence… that or buy a gadget that tells you. I brought a gadget!
So as swimming and cycling Tri talks starts to sound less like Klingon running should bring few surprises. New runners, including triathletes are often embraced with the ‘everyone welcome’ a little ahead of the then fast decent into mesmerising talk of intervals, speed work, Tempo runs, long runs and loop backs. Tri talk differs little from the wider running world talk, other than a marathon may be only one third of your event (one fifth if T1 & T2 are given the credit they deserve). I don’t yet know the word for running with your bike, holding the saddle and steering it perfectly to the relevant ‘racking’ position. But I am still a newbie.  
Beyond the actual activities you then hear of T1 and T2 – unique (as far as I know) to Tri talk. T1 & T2 is all about the art of undressing and dressing. Here the true art to Tri talk comes to the fore. There are no words that really describe the wetsuit wiggle, it needs to be seen. There are actually 2 wet suit wiggles, although arguable one is a wetsuit ‘stomp’ the other a bad version of the wetsuit ‘twister’.  I realise I am drifting out of Tri talk and into Tri dance, but equally important. You cannot ask someone to describe a wetsuit wiggle or stomp. Neither can you ask someone to demonstrate. You just have to rock up at the beach during for an OW swim session and watch.  Like all dances, each is unique to the individual lost in their own wiggle or stomp.
This is but a simple toe dip into Tri talk. It has not entered the realms of technology. I remain to much of a newbie to even try (not Tri but ‘try’). I have a new Garmin, my Vo2 is maxed, much like my credit card with tri purchases. I am faster than some, slower than others. I have a SWOLF, SPMs, BPMs and a heart rate. As long as I have these, I’ll keep Tri-ing.
Yours
A Newbie