A Triathlete's Guide to Love

To excel in endurance sports, athletes need to be comfortable with solitude. We spend a lot of our free time alone—swimming laps, doing efforts on the bike, and running endless miles—just to achieve our goals. Still, finding a training partner can elevate your performance and help take you to the next level. If that training partner can be your life partner too, then you’ve got it made. Love and support are some of the most potent performance-enhancing drugs around, and they’re totally legal! 

Maybe you’ve heard of the “Norwegian Method” of training? Well, let me introduce you to what I'm calling the “Quintana Roo Method” of love. Today, I’ll give you some useful (and 140.6% serious) tips to help spark your next high-wattage romance. The best part is, as a triathlete, you already have all the skills and tools you need to succeed! 

Shop Triathlon Bikes

Tip 1: Train Your Weak Discipline

Shoot, what do I say?

I like training with a 20/50/30 split. I’m not talking about swimming, biking, and running. I’m talking about the three B’s of romance: banter, body language, and bonding. To make it to the finish line of love, we need to be strong in all three disciplines, but many of us are weaker in one. Focus on your weaknesses, and you’ll become more well-rounded. 

My greatest weakness is the opening leg—banter (a.k.a. flirting). Good banter can’t win love, but bad banter can certainly lose it. Unless you grew up bantering, it likely won’t come naturally. It’s hard to train too because many don’t have access to good facilities to train regularly. Fortunately, you can supplement your banter training with “dryland workouts.” I put a swimming cap and goggles on a pull buoy and practice my openings—“Come here often?”—ugh, see, I need to train more! 

Tip 2: Progressive Overload 

Ease into it.

Improvement requires increasing your volume and intensity over time. This is called progressive overload, and it's how we build a massive romantic engine. The key, however, is to do this SLOWLY. Triathletes are incredibly motivated, and many go all in on love too early without the experience or fitness to back it up. This often leads to burn-out, or worse, injury. 

Be warned: the final of the three B’s—bonding—is where most athletes tend to get hurt! Increasing volume and intensity too quickly leads to broken hearts or shattered dreams. If you’re newer to bonding, or your bonding volume is low, ease into it! 

Tip 3: Fuel the Work

Stash those gels.

Have you ever bonked during a date? Bonking happens when the conversation peters out into awkward silence. It’s because you’re underfueled! If there’s one surefire way to boost your romantic durability, it’s to pour more fuel on the fire, and by fuel, I mean carbs.  

To carry a date on late into the evening, you need A LOT of carbs—80-120g per hour, more if you’re well-trained. Dinner at Olive Garden? Ask for all the breadsticks. No, not a lot of breadsticks. ALL the breadsticks. Moonlit walk on the beach? Make sure you bring enough gels. Set a timer to remind yourself to eat. Never arrive underfueled. Carb loading should begin 1–3 days before a date. Make it clear to any prospective partner that you’re up to speed on all the latest nutritional science. They say the way to a triathlete’s heart is through the stomach. That’s 100% true.  

Tip 4: Dress to Impress

Oh my...

Is your wetsuit full of tears and holes? Is your cycling kit worn so thin that people riding behind you feel like they’re looking at the Grand Canyon from orbit? Are you wearing shoes without carbon plates or eye-searing neon colors? You need to get your apparel game on point!

To transform yourself into the bell of the ball, I suggest starting with the HYDROsix2 or HYDROfive2 wetsuit. These wetsuits employ all of our best performance features, but most importantly, they use Quintana Roo’s new Unisex Fitting System which helps you determine the ideal size based on body type rather than gender. This provides a new level of fit optimization, which means you’ll get unparalleled comfort and speed—and you’ll look HOT AF. Want to show more skin? Check out the HYDROspeed swimskins too!

Shop QR Swim

Tip 5: Practice Transitions 

Proper preparation prevents poor performance.

Imagine this: You're watching Netflix with your crush. The vibes are good, and you want to move things along to the “chill” portion of the evening. But how do you do it smoothly? This is why we practice our transitions. I’ve seen far too many triathletes derail their romantic goals with awkward and slow transitions. Your off days are a great time to practice without the pressure of performing within an actual relationship. Be sure to work on both T1 (want to come in?) and T2 (let’s slip into something more comfortable). 

When you get really good at transitions, you can experiment with what the pros call a “flying mount,” which can save precious seconds. These can get wild though so be sure to practice in private and get enthusiastic consent from your partner beforehand! Missing a flying mount can lead to serious embarrassment.  

Tip 6: Use Lots of Body Glide

Photo: Body Glide

Um, yeah. You know why… 

Tip 7: Focus on Recovery

Not pictured—my tears. Photo: Hyperice

Dating is hard. Building a solid relationship is hard. Sometimes we fail. Putting in the work is meaningless if we aren’t able to recover from it. So we need to practice self-care and give ourselves the time to heal. 

There are many effective recovery modalities, and it can take a bit of experimentation to find what works best for you. I like to turn off my phone, put on my Normatec boots, and lay in bed to watch my favorite rom-coms—Clueless, 10 Things I Hate About You, and Crazy, Stupid, Love—all while crying into a bowl of Greek yogurt, chia seeds, and protein powder. No booze though because I have a brick workout the next day. 

Tip 8: Set Achievable Goals

One can dream... Photo: Lionelsanders.com

No matter how many times I slide into Lionel Sanders’ DMs, I might never get him to dump his current beau for Quintana Roo. I’m not saying that you can’t dream big. Big, hairy, audacious goals are good. I’m saying that the most effective way to win is by focusing on process goals instead of outcome goals. 

An outcome goal is what you want to accomplish. Process goals are the steps you take to get there. Setting achievable process goals lets you effectively build toward your bigger outcome goal. In a triathlon context, it’s like focusing on completing every scheduled workout. By accomplishing this process goal, you set yourself up to accomplish a bigger outcome goal, like finishing your first IRONMAN. My process goal is to approach Lionel at every bike drop-off at every IRONMAN event until I achieve the outcome goal of him remembering my name. Creepy? What do you mean? I’m the one giving you tips, leave me alone!   

Tip 9: Put an Upgrade on It

Yes! Yes! A thousand times, yes!

If things are going well with your training/romantic partner and you can envision a future with them, then it’s probably time to LOCK IT DOWN. I’m telling you to put a ring on it, and by ring, I mean two rings, and by two rings, I mean a set of aerodynamic carbon wheels. 

Nothing will make a triathlete’s heart melt like a performance upgrade. ENVE, Zipp, HED, DT Swiss, Vision, CeramicSpeed, ISM—these are the diamonds of the 21st century. The good news is that you don’t have to talk to a sleazy jeweler to get the best upgrades. The Quintana Roo bike builder lets you swap components to suit your needs and budget. If you want to special order anything, just fill out the “Component Requests” box at the bottom. You can build a bike exactly how you want to prepare for your biggest event. 

Imagine this: you get down on one knee and present your partner with a V-PRi decked out with Zipp 454/858 NSWs, Vision Pro Extensions, and a CeramicSpeed bottom bracket and OSPW system. How can you say no to that? They’ll be yours forever. 

Tip 10: Learn to Love Yourself Too

Damn, I look good! 

They say you can't love another until you learn to love yourself. When I love myself, I feel like the best version of myself. That energy spills out and has positive effects on the rest of my life.  

So how do you learn to love yourself? That might be beyond the scope of this blog post. But I’ll let you in on a little secret. Nothing makes me feel more confident than a Quintana Roo triathlon bike. That’s right! The combination of mind-bending speed, supreme comfort and fit, and razor-sharp handling make me feel like a superhero. Choosing a Quintana Roo bike is an act of self-love, and I guarantee that riding one will grant you romantic success!

Note: Quintana Roo does not guarantee that buying a bike will lead to romantic success. It might help though, who knows...

Shop Triathlon Bikes