The Other Woman

A woman triathlete is also a woman. She is worried of her looks, her hair, her body, her clothes and her family.
As amateur dedicated athletes, we lose touch with several important things a woman must take care of, such as the look of her hair and nails.
As triathletes, we know that swimming is the worse thing you can do to your hair, so we have to invest in non-conventional shampoos and hair treatments to try to avoid the terrible effect of chlorine in our hair. There are several salon shampoos (quite expensive but effective) to try and revert such effect, but it also depends on the time and budget we are willing to invest in ourselves. This also happens with the effect of sun in our head while biking.
The care of our nails is another aspect that is always affected by swimming, given that no manicure will survive a swimming training…so for
me, manicures only last from Friday to Monday…I am already used to it.
Most illustrative, I have been carrying a terrible suntan with the shape of a trisuit, and I believe I will have to comply with my entire social
calendar wearing that horrible mark in my body.
For me, the care of our bodies and looks is not as relevant as the training
itself, but it makes me think that sometimes we triathletes tend to be quite selfish; we do not care if we will miss our best friend’s birthday party next Saturday because we have to get up early and run 18K, we are sure “she´ll understand”; and we try to plan our family vacations depending on which race will or will not be available in such date.
Such selfishness must never be greater than our possibilities and willingness to train, but then why is it so hard to understand that we do
not care if we spend lots of money to go to a race very far away from home, and simply enjoy the pasta dinner and marathon expo, rather than going to a bachelorette party to a cool beach with our friends? Why is it so hard for the non-triathletes to understand that waking up at 5:30 am to run 18K is more fulfilling and fun than going to the coolest club in town and get wasted? Why is it so hard to understand that we are a different bread, not a simple woman, not the one that will have perfect nails and hair?