How to flourish as a triathlon couple – Tri Harmony!
Having a triathlete as a partner may seem like the easiest of lives: You have an automatic training buddy, a wheel to suck when your legs vanish after 100km and someone to push you to get to the pool when you just don’t feel like it. However, in reality, couples in triathlon can have negative outcomes and so here Coach Philip summarises some reflections on his years of coaching athletes and some of the ‘issues’ he sees when balancing training and their significant other.
I have long joked about the idea of setting up the triathlete’s dating site: "Tri Harmony" but have been warned against the idea as the search for "tri harmony" in google may bring up a different set of results than that which was intended!!! Nevertheless, with Valentine’s day upon us, I felt it may be a fun time to look at what makes a successful triathlon relationship. Not that I would ever see myself as a relationship guru – I much prefer coaching. However, here are a few observations that may (or may not) be helpful for our triathlon romantics to keep the flame alive. As a coach, there are certainly frequent conversations with athletes which are about balancing a relationship and training so this does have pertinence to many triathletes.
Below are some thoughts and observations from over the years of coaching which will hopefully help some people achieve ‘tri harmony!’:
Recognise that triathlon is actually quite a selfish sport. To be a successful athlete and also partner you need to both recognise that there is an inherent need to be selfish to perform (give each other that space) but also realise that you have to be to be selfless in order to make the relationship work. This isn't an easy balance to strike, but if you want both to succeed, you have to be both. All too often we hear about the IRONMAN widow/widower but we don't hear nearly enough of the IRONMAN partnership. Aim to be that partnership!
Make sure your relationship is bigger than triathlon and triathlon is part of your relationship and not everything to do with it. At some point triathlon may not be everything in your life and so it is vital to bond over those other important things other than the fact you ride the same Strava segment.
Remember you are a team. Recognise that your training can be aligned but often it may not because of injury, work or other changes in routine. Support your partner both when your training is aligned and also when it isn’t. Take that teamwork ethos forwards and ensure you don't just become training buddies or worse 'competitors'. Work off each other’s strengths and weaknesses (e.g. set up handicapped TT’s or hill repeats) to help you both work with each other but don’t become each other’s competitor. This team ethos extends to planning races together. By including each other in race planning it means you will have more time together by planning your lives around key races and social occasions. Finally, share the training facilities. If you have one turbo or space for one person rolling, then take it turns and plan your week to make it work. You will be surprised how much anguish this can take away from your relationship.
Don’t dwell on disappointments. If your other half has sacrificed for you to do that race and you spend the time after an event disappointed, it makes them feel their sacrifice was not worth it. Sure, go through the emotions, but thank your partner. They will empathise more with you this way than if you are just miserable about a race every time you don’t win! Equally, don't let your disappointment get in the way of celebrating the other one’s own successes. If you are both racing the same race, it may not be the case that you both achieve your desired race goals. Don’t pull down the other person’s successes, celebrate with them – you are a team after-all!
Remember to be your partner's biggest supporter. Just because they are racing doesn't mean you should too! (Clearly this is tricky for many championship events). However, if a race is important to your partner and it is a shorter distance or something you class as "easy" there is nothing worse than ticking off a major achievement on your own bucket list only to have your partner having done it a few minutes or hours earlier and they were never there to support you.
Make an effort – lycra, no matter how expensive, is not an effort! Though you certainly will look great in lycra, it is important to keep the flame alive outside of the sporting arena. Quality time is not how much training time you can get done together. Making an effort in going out with each other (out of lycra and in ‘normal’ clothes) makes a big difference. Especially if your other half is less obsessed by triathlon than you!
Make it a goal to make it past 9pm on date night!
Don’t be with the person for tips and advice – I have heard a long time ago that there was some sort of triathlon dating site and one successful female athlete had a lot of men ‘connecting’ with her so they could get tips and advice on how to get faster! I think it would be shallow to “connect” over race results and training targets!
Sometimes you have to let someone you love make mistakes to learn themselves. It is very rare that you both will come at exactly the same level of performance in your genders respectively. Therefore, one of you will have experience that the other won't! It may be the best thing to do is to let the other person make some mistakes and learn from them than come across as the person always telling them what to do. I am a firm believer in equality of relationships. If you always find yourself telling your partner what to do, that isn't a balanced relationship.
Work together to economise your time. When you finish a bike ride, one of you can clean the bikes, the other can get your food together so you both complete two tasks in half the time! Share chores, help each other get ready and help the other get out the door if they have a tight turnaround time.
Triathletes tend to love gadgets. Make sure you don't have gadgets on all the time otherwise you don't enjoy each other’s company. Be that Instagram, Strava or checking your HR in bed...you can both set your own boundaries with what is acceptable. But remember your happiness comes from the time spent together, not what social media says! Equally, it is important to recognise that life is meant to be fun and it can be no fun if you are constantly counting the calories of dinner concerned about how this will affect your training, worrying about if you should have one more drink even though you have training the next day...if that is a topic of conversation, then you are probably in love with training more than you are with your partner...learn to live a little and have fun spending time together.
Think outside of triathlon. You are both going to have above average fitness levels, you are both going to be fit and strong enough to do all sorts of things. Use your levels of fitness to go on exciting adventures and holidays together which don’t just look like race destinations or training camps!
To be honest, everything else is then down to normal relationship advice: communicate, work together, make sure there is balance and equality in your relationship and as with any relationship, you need to work at it for it to work. The benefit of a triathlon relationship is that you really do have a hobby in common.
Simply: love the person, not the training effect!
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