Black line tattoo of three triathlon pictograms, a swimmer, cyclist and runner, in a simple style on the outer foot near the ankle, shown in two photos.

Triathlon pictograms on the outer foot

Ankle · Black and grey · Photo

Two photographs show a bare foot with three small black pictograms in a row: a swimmer, a cyclist on a bicycle and a running figure, arranged from the heel towards the toes. The figures are drawn with bold, simple strokes and solid dots for heads, with no shading. The skin is light and the background is a beige carpet, and the toenails have red polish.

Ankle Foot

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Take it to an artist as a reference. A good artist will make it yours rather than copy someone else's tattoo.

A story inspired by this tattoo · fiction

You're up the ladder at the edge of Hollin Wood before the dew has lifted, a tin of black gloss in one hand and a brush you've cut down to three hairs. Mrs Pargeter from the post office holds the clipboard and the opinion that the figures on the signs are too small for anyone running past at speed. You tell her the signs were never meant for runners. They were meant for the lads who had to read them with their lungs on fire.

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The swimmer goes on the stile by the lake path, a solid dot for a head and three wavy strokes beneath it, because the water is where the race starts and nobody sees it coming. The cyclist goes on the gatepost at the top of the lane, two wheels drawn as tight rings and the rider bent low, as if he's already late for tea. You paint the runner last, on the oak by the church gate where the course turns for home, body flung forward and legs striding out behind it.

Forty years of this and you have never painted a finish sign. The organisers always promised one, a flag and a banner, but nobody ever asked you. The route simply ends in the car park by the village hall, where the cones are stacked and the kettle is already on. The sign you care about most is the runner, because it's the last thing the boys see before they stop being boys who might not make it.

By Sunday the gloss will have blistered in the sun and the rain will take the cyclist's left wheel first. Somebody will photograph the runner on the oak and never know a man in a flat cap stood on the ladder for two hours getting the knees right. That is the job: to be a sign people pass without looking at, and to get the legs right anyway.