The Kick That Ate the Bike Leg: Saving Your Legs at Your First Olympic Triathlon
Triathlon Stories, Part 3
Brigitte is 58, a grandmother of three, and the most stubborn marathon runner in her running club. Seven marathons, all finished, one of them with a blister she still refers to by name. After two sprint triathlons, she decided it was time for her first Olympic distance at the lake near her town: 1.5 km swim, 40 km bike, 10 km run.
The run didn't worry her. The bike didn't worry her. The swim, she said, was "just a long bath".
The swim she won, and the bike she lost
Brigitte actually swam well. She'd worked on her balance and her breathing, and she came out of the water in the middle of her age group, beaming. She ran to her bike, clipped in, and pushed off.
Her legs said no.
Not a dramatic no. Just a heavy, empty, concrete-filled no. Her thighs burned on the first little hill, and a man on a shopping bike with a basket overtook her. "He had baguettes in the basket," she said. "Baguettes."
What had happened? Brigitte had kicked the whole 1.5 km like her life depended on it. Big, hard, six-beat kicks from the knee, 1,500 metres of them. Her arms had pulled her through the water, and her legs had been doing a full workout behind her that nobody had asked for.
The kick is not your engine
Runners love their legs. On land, legs are the engine. So in the water, runners try to make the legs the engine again, and kick hard. But the legs are the biggest muscles in your body, and they use a lot of oxygen. In a triathlon, you need them for two more disciplines after the swim.
In the book From Runner to Efficient Swimmer: Master the Crawl, the kick chapter starts with one idea: the kick is not your engine. Its main job is to keep your hips high and to give your rotation timing. Your propulsion comes from the anchor of your hand and the rotation of your body.
For many runners, an easy two-beat kick works well: one small kick for each arm stroke. It feels almost lazy. That's the point. Loose ankles, kick from the hip, not from the knee, and keep it small, inside the shadow of your body.
Four ways to save your legs for the bike
- Kick small. Keep the kick inside the width and depth of your body. Big kicks create drag, not speed.
- Kick from the hip, ankles loose. Floppy feet, relaxed calves. A runner's stiff, flexed ankle works like a brake in the water.
- Try a two-beat kick. One kick per arm stroke. Practise it in short attempts first, then over longer distances.
- Kick a little more at the end. In the last 100 metres, a few livelier kicks wake the legs up and send blood to them before you stand up and run to your bike.
The next race
Brigitte spent the winter teaching her legs to relax in the pool. She said the two-beat kick felt "like cheating at Monopoly". The following summer she swam the same 1.5 km, a little slower than the year before, and got on her bike with fresh legs.
She overtook the man with the baguettes on the first hill. She says she didn't look back. She did look back.
What Brigitte took away from her first Olympic triathlon
- In a triathlon, the swim is the first of three. Don't spend your legs on it.
- The kick is not your engine. It keeps your hips up and your timing right.
- Small, relaxed kicks from the hip, with loose ankles, cost far less energy.
- A slightly slower swim can make your whole race faster.
The Triathlon Stories
Three runners, three first races, three lessons: pacing for Anja in the pool, sighting for Kevin in the lake and saving your legs for Brigitte at the Olympic distance. Put them together, and you have a swim that sets up your whole race instead of ruining it.
Brigitte's story shows something every triathlete discovers sooner or later: the swim isn't a collection of separate tips. Balance, breathing, the catch, the kick, pacing and sighting all depend on each other. Fix the kick without the balance, and the legs sink. Fix the breathing without the head position, and the hips drop. Pick up a tip here and a drill there, and you end up with a stroke held together with tape, one that falls apart the moment the race gets busy. What actually works is a complete system, built in the right order and foundation first: dry-land rehearsal, then balance, then breathing, then the complete stroke, then distance, then open water. Each stage stays until it's automatic before the next one is added. That's how a runner's subconscious is retrained for the water, and it's exactly how the book From Runner to Efficient Swimmer: Master the Crawl is built: five stages, each with its own readiness gate, using a method proven many times. If these stories sounded familiar, you don't need another tip. You need the whole method, in the right order, at your pace.
Take it easy, God bless you.