Last weekend in Bayawan, some local triathletes represented Dumaguete in a swim-bike- run competition called the Tawo-Tawo Triathlon Festival.
The Tawo-Tawo Festival is an annual event held in February in celebration of the fiesta of Bayawan City. The event has since attracted sports enthusiasts from all of Negros Island and other neighboring islands as far as Dipolog, after the City added the triathlon as a come-on to help celebrate their culture and heritage.
The various teams send their best swimmers, cyclists, and runners to compete. Dumaguete’s triathlon teams did an outstanding performance, and brought home trophies and pride.
These individual triathletes live a normal life like you and me, but whose passion is in endurance sports. They are regular people who hold decent jobs or are still busy finishing projects at school. They go about their daily life juggling family, job, school, training, and socialization.
Some of you might wonder, “But how on earth can you do all that?”
With the right discipline and dedication and passion, of course, it is possible to juggle all that well.
Triathlon is an endurance sports that combines three sporting disciplines in one race. It’s been around since the early 1970s where it was first contested in Mission Bay, in San Diego, California. The sequence is swimming some distance in open water, transition to cycling, and running to the finish line. The distances for each event vary according to their categories.
The shortest distance is called Sprint. It consists of 750-800 meters swim, a 20-kilometer cycling, and a 3.1 kilometer run.
A Standard distance consists of 1500-meter swim, a 40-kilometer bike, and 10-kilometer run.
Long Distance category splits in two. One is called Half Ironman or 70.3 (the total miles of all the three sports) which consists of a four-kilometer swim, 120-kilometer cycling, and 21 kilometer run/half marathon.
The other is reserved for those who want to test their limit, and is regarded as the hardest of all categories — often called the Ironman or 140.6 (the total miles), consisting of a 3.8 kilometer swim, a 180-kilometer bike, and a 42- kilometer run/full marathon, all to be finished in one day.
That’s like swimming from the pier area upto the reclamation area at the Press Club about four times back and forth; then come out of the water, wear cleats, to ride the bike going south to the town of Sta. Catalina and back to Dumaguete; then wear rubber shoes and run from Dumaguete to the town of Amlan and back to Dumaguete to the finish line — all within a 17-hour cutoff. (Someday I will tell you how I completed my Personal Best in Ironman in 12 hours, 39 minutes, 20 seconds.)
First and foremost, one needs to be in excellent health to even start training for a triathlon. You will need some extra time to cover the distance needed in mastering each sport everyday, and sometimes twice a day.
Time would seem more manageable to a single person or one who lives alone than it would appear for one who has marital duties and responsibilities to children, and could be challenged by balancing training and family.
Without any financial support from marketing deals, this sport also favors those who have a well-paying job or a profitable business.
The longer the event’s distance, the more training hours are required, if one wants to finish well in the race.
To give you an idea of a typical week in a triathlete’s life, your day starts before sunrise to train for swimming, cycling or running. Each discipline requires about three training days, and so a total of at least nine training days for all three disciplines are to be spread out in seven days of the week.
After the workout is done, it is routine to have a good breakfast and lunch to fill you up, and get yourself ready to face whatever the day will bring you. If a second workout is needed in that one day, then it should be done in the afternoon before dinner.
Now one must never forget that you must have ample time reserved for family and personal life. (Otherwise, we don’t know what else there is to live for.)
Sometimes it is unavoidable that one will have to choose between life and sports. A good time management practice would help to always keep your priorities checked. (If you give up work to focus on training, what will pay for your triathlon training?)
Triathlon is not a cheap sport. One has to invest on equipment like a good paid of goggles, a good bike, a good pair of running shoes, plus the accessories that go with it.
To register for a race is another matter. The fees alone are prohibitive. Here in Dumaguete, they tease that the fees are mainly affordable mainly by businessmen, doctors and lawyers.
Then there’s the cost of travel if the race is outside Dumaguete. How to fly the bike (properly on a case) on the plane? When you get out of town, one has to think of the food and accommodation as well.
So why do triathletes like me even do it? And why keep on doing it? All I can say is that we are your regular mortals who just happen to love the sports of triathlon.
Two weeks ago we started the eight-week Beginner Running Program. This week is the third week. Just a reminder that when you start to jog, slowly find your rhythm with two strides breathing in, and two strides breathing out.
Warm up by walking for 5 minutes then do some light stretching. Do the workout:
Day 1. Job 5 minutes, walk 1 minute. Repeat 5x
Day 2. Jog 5 minutes, walk 1 minute. Repeat 5x
Day 3. Jog 6 minutes, walk 1 minute. Repeat 6x
Cool down by walking 5 minutes then do some stretches holding for about 10-20 seconds each group of muscles: hamstrings (back of thigh), quadriceps (front of thigh), and the calves (back of lower leg).
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