Marathon Me

Eleven hours from now Christopher will start his first triathlon. I am quite the proud daddy right now.  Pictured above is Christopher with his big boy bike, and his brand new triathlon outfit, that Shelley spent hours locating around town and over the internet.  It’s really cute, even to me.We’ve had a rocky few weeks of bike riding leading up to this moment.  Bouts of screaming and crying, intermixed with really fast riding, followed by really sllloooooooooooowwwwww riding, and some more screaming.  But last night we had a breakthrough again and he was smiling and cackling as he blew past me, forcing me to run to keep up.  So I am really looking forward to tomorrow and hope that for both of our sakes (mostly his, but honestly partially mine) that he enjoys doing this.

Tomorrow he will do his first triathlon, but due to a quirky rule, he will be competing in the 7-8 year old division instead of the 5-6, where his dad believes he belongs.

The USA Triathlon for kids bases the age groups on how old you will be on December 31st, not how old you are on race day. I am sure this is how it works for grown-up triathlons as well, but since we all do the same distances I’ve never noticed it being an issue.

What it means for Christopher is that instead of a 25m swim, he will have to swim 100m, which he has pointed out is 4 times as far. As a non-swimmer I totally understand his point. Luckily it doesn’t add any distance to his bike or his run. He will bike 2.5 miles and run .6 miles.Secretly (well maybe not now that I’ve posted this) Christopher is looking forward to calling both his Uncle Scott and Aunt Michelle and letting them know that he finished his first triathlon before they did, decades before in fact.

We will soon have two triathletes in the family, and then it will be Shelley’s turn. She thinks she can’t do it, but like many things (none that I can think of of course), she is wrong. She totally can if she sets her mind to it.

So tomorrow there will be two, and within the next 12 months I suspect there will be there.

See you bright and early tomorrow morning.

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