Should I Just Do This Naked?

I’ve been working for weeks with a company that does custom tri kits. I’m not going to name them because I think they are doing their best and trying to solve the problem (though it won’t be in time or me,) and because they are basically no different from all the other companies I tried.

I submitted my measurements on their form, my coach designed the world’s most adorable kit, and everything went fine. At the final step I got an e-mail from one of the company’s leadership telling me how sorry he was, but that they simply don’t have the capability to make a kit in my size.

To be clear, I wasn’t getting a custom kit for style (though it’s cool) I would rather spend much less on a regular kit, but those don’t seem to exist in my size either. As I said, this is not the first time (nor second, nor third) that this has happened, though everyone else was able to tell me right away that they couldn’t do it, this was the first time that we got to the design stage which makes it all the more painful.

The paucity of good basic workout clothes in plus sizes has been getting better over the years and I’m happy for that. But when it comes to true technical athletic wear, they still seem to want us to compete in clothing we fashioned from a bedsheet. It’s incredibly frustrating. If it weren’t for the chafing (and, you know, public nudity laws) I would just say fuck it and do the whole thing naked, but instead it looks like I’ll be wearing a cobbled-together FrankenKit.

In good news my workouts have been going pretty well, with the exception of the long bike curse. I’ve had all kinds of weird malfunctions during this ride including, this week, a popped spoke. I was only 12 frickin’ miles from the end of the ride, too! Luckily I ride a loop and I was only a couple miles from my car. And in extra good news, my legs were still strong and it felt great to walk after the ride – even in my bike shoes (I don’t clip in so they aren’t as uncomfortable as they could be to begin with, but they certainly aren’t my cushy running shoes!) So it was an unintended Brick workout!

Just for posterity, here’s the kit my coach designed (Originally I wanted the back to say “If you can read this, you’re not making the next cut-off” but Steve reminded me that it’s a looped course and people will be lapping me, so we went with this instead:

What’s next…