Run, Ride, Sink or Swim: A rookie's year in women's triathlon

by Lucy Fry

At the age of thirty-one, Lucy Fry was pretty certain she knew her limits. And here's how she felt about the component parts of triathlon: swimming - fairly terrifying, especially in open water. Cycling - brilliant when done on a stationary bike, indoors. Running - sometimes fantastic, sometimes hideous. But as increasing numbers of her female friends continued to sign up to tri, Lucy couldn't help wondering: what was it about this exhausting pursuit that women seemed to find so magical, so transformative? The time had come to find out.

Over one year, five triathlons and hundreds of training hours, Lucy uncovers the ins and outs of women's triathlon: how to wear a sports bra under a wetsuit, the competition and camaraderie, whether getting over 'jelly legs' makes you a more resilient human being - and finds that maybe she doesn't know her limits after all...

Funny, warm and engaging, Run, Ride, Sink or Swim is for both the tri-curious and the dedicated tri-hard, and for any woman looking for inspiration to make the transition from sofa to start line.

• ISBN10: 0571313159
• ISBN13: 9780571313150
• Publish Date: 5 May 2016 (first published 5 May 2015)
• Publish Status: Active
• Publish Country: GB
• Imprint: Faber & Faber
• Edition: Main
• Format: Paperback
• Pages: 288
• Language: English

Reviews

[Leah]

An interesting read, but there's never a lot you can say about memoirs, is there? How can you judge a book about someone's actual life? You so can't.

One thing I will say is that I will never do a triathlon myself, boy I didn't know it was so competitive! The mind boggles at how much training goes in to completing a triathlon and I have a newfound respect for people who do it and I admire Lucy for just going for it, gung ho. It takes a lot of guts to do something like that, to say to yourself "I'm going to do 5 triathlons" and actually do it.

I couldn't do a triathlon if I wanted to, actually, because I'm not a very strong swimmer at all (I don't even swim correctly!!!!) and the only biking I do is on a stationary spin bike (which I love). After you've done spinning, regular cycling just isn't the same and I can only run for 30 seconds before dying (not literally). If I can run even just a little bit of what Lucy can in a few months, I'll be happy.

I'm so glad I read it though because it was super interesting, and I admire all those people who go out on a rainy, awful days to train for something that sounds like pure torture. Kudos.