A Fat Kid Becomes An Ironman

Took the daughters out for a ride to the grocery store to buy supplies for dinner. My oldest is now so confident in her cycling that she “4 miles is nothing, I can totally do that! I rode 6 miles!” So we set up the half bike for the youngest and headed out with oldest riding solo.

Although my oldest was very confident, I was a little nervous, because unlike last week, where we had a wide two lane road to ourselves (closed to other traffic) in this case we’d have to ride along the Burke Gilman trail. The BG trail is a great cycling trail, but near our house it is quite busy with lots of fast cyclists and runners and walkers. I was a little nervous that my oldest would be nervous and have a hard time with the traffic. The great news is that, nope… she’s 100% confident. In fact, I might say she’s over confident… but maybe I’m just being a protective parent.

The best and worst part of the ride came at about 1 mile from home, when we were crossing a busy intersection and my oldest was riding toward a blind corner on the trail. I could see another cyclist approaching at top speed, and I knew the cyclist couldn’t see my daughter on her bike. I yelled to my daughter to stop, which she did, but unfortunately she stopped rather suddenly, and actually took a tumble and skid to a stop with her bike on top of her. The bad part was my daughter got a bit of road rash with scrapes on knees and elbow. The good part is that she insisted that she was not going to end the ride there, and that we’d all be riding on to the grocery store and back home again! She was not going to let a little scrape end her ride!

When we got to the store, we got some bandages from one of the clerks, and patched her up in a jiffy. The sterile swab to clean the wounds was the worst part of the experience.

After completing our shopping we made it home safe and sound with no more bumps.

At dinner, as we discussed my sister’s successful mini-tri practice, my oldest daughter announced “Dad, didn’t you say they have kids triathlons? I think I’d like to do that! I’m a really good swimmer, and I can ride my bike 6 miles, and I can run all afternoon! I think I can do it!”

Oh boy!

Logbook Activity

• Type: Cycle
• Date: 07/06/2008
• Time: 17:00:00
• Total Time: 00:40:00.00
• Distance: 4 miles
• Average Speed: 6 mph

Helping my sister out by training with her for her first triathlon. She is doing awesome and making great progress. We did a simulated triathlon today, of which, this was the run part. She started out and about a quarter mile into the run she turned to me and said “I feel GREAT!”… Cool!

We ended up running out to our “1 mile out” marker we picked from our bike ride, but when it was all said and done, we believe we only ran about 1.75 miles. Sis got pretty tired by about a third of the way in from the turn around… her personal best cycling effort probably wore her out a little, plus she didn’t take on any fuel before the run, so I’m sure she was a little drained.

All in all it was a great workout and a big confidence boost for her. She has another month before her sprint triathlon… and she already finished 3/4’s of the distance in a simulated triathlon and felt great… so she’s right on track for a great race!

Logbook Activity

• Type: Run
• Date: 07/06/2008
• Time: 13:00:00
• Total Time: 00:25:00.00
• Distance: 1.75 miles
• Average Pace: 14:17.14/mile