I have a triathlon coming up, and I thought to myself, pretty much any healthy and able-bodied person could finish a triathlon if their life depended on it. Maybe it would take a day, and maybe they wouldn’t be able to walk afterwards, but physically, I think they could do it. Could anyone send a 5.8 outside if their life depended on it? Honestly, I have no idea, but I would doubt it. So, given the average climber, what would our triathlon be?
1) Swimming: What sets swimming apart is that if you never learned how to swim, you would probably drown during this leg of the race. So, I propose we replace swimming with another climbing activity that requires learning: lead climbing. If you climb, you can probably lead climb, but if you don’t know how, you could very easily fall to your death. What’s our distance? 100m of lead climbing.
2) Biking: This is a good time for recovery, but also a good time to make up ground. The stakes are low, and as long as you keep pedaling, you’re good to go. For this leg I propose a long traverse. You don’t have to worry about falling, and you can grab cups of water and snacks as you traverse slightly above ground. This will be the longest distance of the race: 1km traverse. It’ll be pumpy, but you choose the pace.
3) Running: At this point, you are dead, but running requires the least amount of technical ability. Running is something natural to humanity. However, it’s also very tiring, and pretty rough on the joints in ways that biking and swimming are not. The equivalent in my mind is bouldering. It hurts, but it’s how we all start to climb, and if you fall you have the crash pad. There’s not much to it logistically. 50 Boulder problems seems like a reasonable way to end this race.
I think every climber could physically handle this, even though it might take forever. 100m leading, 1km traversing, and 50 boulders. Would you guys sign up?
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