You know you are a triathlete when...

You know you are a triathlete when…

You wake up at 5am not because of your alarm but because you are starving.

You have to have a snack aka meal right before bed or you’ll wake up in the middle of the night starving. You also keep emergency snacks by your bed just in case.

Your diet is extremely healthy but consists of close to 10 billion calories.

Your body actually rejects processed food – violently.

A hungry tummy brings out an extremely dark side of you.

Finding a random snack in your bag is the equivalent of finding money in your couch cushions. You are a little too excited.

You have burst into tears when you go to reach for one of the emergency snacks you keep in the car only to realize you have eaten them all.

You have had to stop at a grocery store on the way home after training to grab food because you won’t make the twenty minute drive to your house without dying of starvation.

You have had snacks in the shower. You have eaten entire meals while in the bathtub. You have sat on the floor in your pantry and shoved your face with as much food as you can reach without moving.

There is no such thing as a small cheat meal – it is either go big or go home.

You have eaten a dozen cookies / tub of ice cream / entire pizza in one sitting – and had zero regrets.

Your snacks are the size of regular people’s meals. People are fascinated/disgusted by how much you actually eat.

You have to order from the dinner menu at restaurants for lunch. You also refuse to go to restaurants that don’t offer free unlimited bread

Peanut butter is life.

The best part of your long bike ride is all of the necessary snack breaks.

You have a love hate relationship with riding indoors - on one hand the scenery sucks and you melt like a popsicle on a hot day but on the other hand you get to binge watch netflix and have access to an unlimited amount of snacks.

You love/baby your bikes more than your car.

You seriously question your friendship with your teammates when you get dropped from the pack while cycling.

You own a ridiculous amount of running shoes.

It is minus 20 and skipping your run doesn’t even cross your mind.

It is 15 degrees and you only wear a sports bra and short shorts when running.

You’ve had to at some point in your athletic career do water runs and hated every minute of it.

You secretly enjoy elliptical workouts (ok maybe that is just me).

You have bike sport bras, running sport bras (further divided into categories based on the type of workout), everyday sport bras…

No matter how many showers / amount of soap used you always smell like chlorine.

You have a permanent swimsuit tan on your back.

You have at some point gotten some sort of rash from swimming in open water.

Training three times a day seems completely normal to you.

You don’t understand why people are confused when you say to them you work out before and after work.

You feel like you aren’t working hard enough if you aren’t about to throw up or pass out.

You secretly love hard workouts that make you want to die.

You have talked to yourself in third person while training.

During a workout you have pretended that you are in the middle of a specific race and are winning or making some shocking comeback/takeover.

Your coach gives you the option for an easier workout but you always end up doing the harder one.

You have seriously considered redoing a workout when you realize afterwards that you forgot to start / unpause your watch and didn’t get all the data.

No matter how tired/cranky you are you get your workouts in.

You will grind through an entire 90+ minute workout hating every minute of it rather than just call it a day.

You have sat in your car for up to an hour convincing your exhausted body to get out and do the workout.

In order for you to willingly miss a workout you have to basically be on your deathbed.

You don’t even know what it feels like to actually not be tired.

You have to bite your tongue when people complain to you about being tired.

You understand that horrible moment when your stomach is growling but you are too tired to pick up your utensils to eat.

On race days part of you is terrified and the other part of you feels like the biggest, most bad bitch on the block and emotionally it is very confusing.

Injuries are the equivalent of a death sentence - and reactions are extremely overdramatic. Also getting a common cold is equivalent to the plague.

You are filled with a white hot rage when people complain about training to you when you are injured and would do literally anything to be able to train.

You go through legit withdrawal symptoms when you miss even one day of training.

You call the physio clinic they automatically know who it is based on your voice.

You have blisters/chafe marks/calluses in weird places.

You have almost died in the shower after not realizing just how badly you have chafed.

You have watched team sports and have wondered what it would be like to be able to tag in someone else during a race.

Going to bed before 10 is normal – mostly because you accidentally fall asleep by 8 or 9. Also waking up at 7am is considered sleeping in.

Naps are sacred.

You can’t comprehend why people complain about exercising. You also have to awkwardly smile and nod when people brag about working out a couple times a week.

You are weirdly comfortable wearing extremely tight spandex.

You don’t even bother doing your hair / wearing make up / putting on grown up clothes because your just going to be working out again in a couple hours.

You text your coaches more than your parents.

You have very strong opinions on specific brands/equipment.

You have spent way too much time trying to capture the perfect "candid" pic of yourself training for instagram.

Staircases are your mortal enemy. You always go into them not knowing if you will actually be able to make it to the top without having a heart attack.

You love this crazy sport and wouldn't change anything about it (except maybe make the swim portion longer).