♟ Triathlons are dumb

I am doing a triathlon this weekend. It’s an objectively bizarre thing to do because it’s an objectively bizarre event. Who the heck decided that three sports—swimming, biking, and running—should be combined in a particular order? It’s also an objectively selfish thing to do. Racing each other on thousand-dollar bikes, training for hours on end, and paying an entry fee to subject yourself to pain. These are not things that people who don’t have a lot of time or money do.

But I am doing one. As are thousands of other people in the race I’m participating in and millions of others across the world every year.

So today we’re going to dig into why the triathlon is the way it is and if it's an intelligent or worthy use of our short times on earth.

The origin story

Tracing the evolution of triathlon as a distinct sport is not a simple thing. Triathlon historian and author Scott Tinley suggests that early twentieth-century France may have been the birthplace of triathlon, but the details are a little murky as were the events themselves. Some races involved canoeing instead of swimming. The order was often reshuffled. But shout out to the French for pioneering this unique form of triple suffering.

The first modern triathlon started amidst the fitness revolution of the mid-70s. To set the stage, this is when Arnold Schwarzenegger was at his peak and Jane Fonda was doing aerobics in neon leg warmers. In 1968, less than 24% of American adults exercised regularly; by 1984, that figure had risen to 59%.

It was during this fitness-crazed period that some wackos in San Diego decided that aerobics weren’t enough and organized what we now recognize as the first modern triathlon.

46 people showed up the first year surprising race organizers Jack Johnstone and Don Shanahan. They called the race a “triathlon,” keeping in line with the tradition of naming other multisport events like the pentathlon, heptathlon, and decathlon.

Things got really out of control a few years later in Hawaii. After getting into an argument about who was fitter, Navy commander John Collins and real estate entrepreneur Tom Warren cooked up a race. A 2.4-mile Waikiki open water swim, a 112-mile around-the-island bicycle race, and the 26.2 mi Honolulu Marathon. All three of those events were separate races on their own. Collins combined them.

Sport Illustrated wrote about the winner of the race (it was Tom Warren. you can read the article here) and the Ironman was born.

But why?

That is the question I’m asking myself now on the eve of my own triathlon. On the surface, it’s a very easy answer. Because it’s human nature. There’s a reason why explorers first climbed Mount Everest—because it’s there.

There’s also a financial angle to this. Wealthier people are attracted to endurance sports because of two things they have in abundance: time and money. Triathlon is by no means an inexpensive sport. Middle-of-the-line tri bikes can cost upwards of $5,000. It also requires an ungodly amount of training hours to become proficient in this event, hours that only comfortable financial standing can buy.

Putting our sociology hat on, we begin to realize that endurance sports offer something that modern life does not: the chance to achieve a clear and measurable goal with a direct throughline back to work that you have put in.

Think about your current job. Maybe you’re a VC with a 10-year-long feedback cycle on your investments. Or you’re a marketing professional who never really knows how much business that OOO billboard is driving.

These professions certainly try to measure their impact. Everyone wants to be data-driven and know that what they are doing is making a tangible impact. But nothing is quite as visceral, as real, as a race against a ticking clock.

You know how you do when you enter a race. The time tells you. And that certainty is intoxicating. But there’s another piece to the jigsaw puzzle.

Pain

White-collar humans have evolved beyond day-to-day pain and suffering. We are domestic animals. Most of our time is spent indoors sitting down. Air conditioning keeps us at the proper temperature year-round. Our hunger can be sated nearly instantaneously.

So rich people look for pain in other avenues because it's the only thing that breaks up their docile existence. Researchers in 2017 published a paper seeking to understand why people who work comfy desk jobs are attracted to not-so-comfy athletic events.

“By flooding the consciousness with gnawing unpleasantness, pain provides a temporary relief from the burdens of self-awareness,” write the researchers.

The irony there, of course, is that all of human history up to this point has been a never-ending quest to eliminate pain from our lives. The reason we work is to have money so we can buy a nicer life that is more comfortable for us. But here we are, shelling out tens of thousands of dollars to just get a taste of that sweet, sweet suffering every once in a while.

Granted, a race is different from hunting for survival for instance. There are tightly defined rules and parameters and we're not in any real threat. You can always just stop. But it’s better than not testing your body at all. If religion is the opiate of the masses, suffering is the heroin of the rich.

But triathlons are the dumbest form of pain

Having done both marathons and triathlons, triathlons are a unique form of rich people suffering. Pure running races feel grounded in what it means to be human. We used to be endurance pack hunters. Women and men as well as young and old get closer in pace the longer the distance gets. Our Achilles tendon is nature's most perfect endurance tool. We can literally run 26.2 miles faster than any other animal on Earth.

But triathlons? There is nothing in nature that dictates we should combine these events in the manner in which we do. I think the ridiculousness is what makes it all the more alluring to some people. Running can’t scratch the same itch as triathlons because it’s almost too straightforward. Triathlons are the premier form of modern human suffering because of how deliberate and foreign they are to anything nature offers us.

Final thoughts

Despite everything that I’ve written above, I am very much looking forward to this race. One aspect I have left out until now is the camaraderie. The collective nature of the suffering on display. That is truly what imbues these events with meaning. Suffering this way alone is impossible. Suffering together turns it into something majestic.

So yes, triathlons are dumb, cost a lot of money, and are probably not the best thing to devote your time and energy to. But that’s the point, after all.