The triathlete’s guide to heckling
Our resident columnist has had plenty of people shout at him during his years as a triathlete, but what do they mean? Martyn translates…
I was recently spotted by a friend while out running with my dogs. My friend let it be known that she’d spotted me by sending me a message saying “Run, Forrest, run”, followed by several laughing emojis, which I took to be some sort of criticism of my efforts.
Having things shouted at you while you’re out training is a common experience for triathletes. While swimming, it’s the job of the swim coach who is actually paid to shout at you.
Having things shouted at you while cycling is a whole other topic that usually involves some mildly inconvenienced driver having a hissy fit, so I’ll skip deftly around that and concentrate on things bellowed at you while running which, in my experience anyway, is either well-meant and completely worthless advice, perfunctory support, or blatant p*sstaking.
One recent example was when I was shuffling past a group of teenagers in a park during a race last year and having a definitely sarcastic “Looking good mate” shouted at me followed by peals of laughter.
My natural inclination to return fire was tempered by the fact that they could have caught me up by doing a moderate amble, so I instead opted for ‘You’re joking, I look like sh*t,’ which got an even bigger laugh and several offers of budget lager.
I think I’ll always prefer original heckles to the kind of well-intentioned but impersonal shouts of support, so here’s a handy guide:
Things not to shout at me
- “Looking good” You know this is a lie, and I know this is a lie, because I didn’t look good before the start and X number of miles in will not have improved things.
- “Keep going” All this does is introduce the very attractive idea of stopping.
- “Knees up”, “relax your shoulders” etc. All you’re doing is drawing attention to my running style’s shortcomings.
- “Good effort” A nice way of saying that I have been unsuccessful.
- “Well done” It’s hard not to interpret this as sarcasm when you’re in 267th place.
Things shouted at me which have made me laugh
- “You look awful, but keep going” This was shouted at me by my wife when I was doing the Vitruvian and I actually thought I was going quite well.
- “You’re further back than I was expecting” Shouted at me by a clubmate during the last kilometre of the Shropshire Tri.
- “Hurry up, the pubs will be shut” Shouted at me by a mate when I was on my last lap of the Ironman Lanzarote run course, which he’d already finished.
- “Watch out for that old man” This was actually said to a group of kids who were being coached by a friend of mine, as I ran past them.
- “You look like a sh*t Iwan Thomas” An impressive heckle from a very drunk man outside a bar on the London Triathlon course.
There’s no doubt that words shouted at you while racing can have a positive or negative effect on your state of mind depending how they’re interpreted, and to prove that claim I offer you two examples:
1. “Put some effort in” started as a joke among a group of us who trained together for Ironman Lake Placid and was something we shouted at each other by way of good-natured sarcasm.
Unfortunately another mate who hadn’t trained with us and wasn’t in on the joke had “put some effort in, Tony” shouted at him during a warm-up race by each of us in turn as we lapped him on the run, and by the end he was mightily p*issed off, responding to each shout by sticking two fingers up at us and saying “And you!”
2. At a boiling middle-distance tri in Belgium I was shuffling sweatily towards a village when I saw a guy look at my number through binoculars, consult his programme, then shout my name to all the people lining the street, which resulted in me running through a crowd chanting “Marteen, Marteen!” I have never run taller or grinned broader in my life.
Top image credit: Daniel Seex
Martyn Brunt
220's back-page columnist 
