An old friend sent me this picture recently. Yes, that's yours truly rocking the Speedo in a triathlon race in the late 80's somewhere in Ontario. In a recent post, I was talking about Training Naked (although a different kind of naked) - back then we used to race nearly naked! And the little that we did wear, was trimmed in pink! Yikes!
What were we thinking? Swim/bike/run in a Speedo? Brilliant. It did make for quick transitions, but the only place that this sort of get-up was cool( and that's a stretch, looking back), was on race day on a triathlon race course. No where else. Of course, some did push the boundaries with this - wearing the Speedo elsewhere - out shopping and for coffee (I am serious), and that's why we have the Under-Pants Run at Ironman Hawaii and other Ironman races - as a sort-of lampooning send-up of how ridiculous, and potentially offensive this all was to others.
Fast forward to today, and thankfully tri clothing for triathlon races has become much better. Truth be told, doing it all in a Speedo was not that comfortable. I am not sure exactly what we were thinking. Hopefully, in some small way, our crazy ambitions and discomfort back then, has lead to the more realistic, modest and comfortable triathlon race apparel options that are available today.
Although, don't get me going on the compression socks! A blog for another day.
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1 comment:
I think it is a cultural thing – visit Brazil or Europe. They don’t have to even be racing.
On that note, I appreciate the technological advances in triathlon clothing!
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