Maria the Triathlete

This afternoon Maria participated in the kids triathlon held at our YMCA. She received a flyer at school several weeks ago and really wanted to do it so we signed her up. The kids had to bike for 2 miles, run for 1 mile, and swim 100 yards. Most of her training happened this past week and only consisted of running - her biking is pretty good as we bike several miles fairly often in the summer, and we didn't have the time or facilities to work on swimming. So we really had no idea how she might do.

There were two age groups for the kids - 5-8 year olds, and 9-12 year olds. And girls only completed against other girls, boys only competed against other boys. There were 4 boys and 6 girls in Maria's age groups. The race was run fairly slowly - first the young kids biked, then the older kids. Then the young kids would run, then the older kids. And then swimming took even longer since there were only four usable swimming lanes in the pool.

Biking was first. And right off, we noticed that most kids in Maria's age group had bigger bikes, with more speeds. And that did hurt Maria. She was 5th (out of 6 girls) in the bike race, and very frustrated at the end because her bike just would not go as fast as most of the others (we were planning on getting her a new bike for her birthday in May, and had no idea it would make such a big difference in the race).

Then came the running. She's been running/walking a mile with Ben a few nights this week, and she worked on pacing. So we reminded her it didn't matter who started off the fastest, and sure enough, she was one of the last ones passing us near the starting line, but she was able to jog most of the way (walked a little), and came in 2nd of the six girls in the run. We knew that made up for a lot of lost time during the bike race, because she beat some girls by a lot.

Last was the swimming. They did the girls in Maria's division in two groups, three girls swimming at a time. Maria came in 2nd of the three, but all three were spread pretty far apart. . After her race, I took Maria to the locker room to change so we didn't see the second group of girls race. I was thinking out of 6, Maria probably came in 3rd or 4th overall. And they only award medals to the top three.

But we were surprised during awards. Maria got the silver medal - took 2nd place out of 6 girls. She was really surprised - I think the stress of the bike race at the beginning really made her feel like she didn't have much of chance. We are so proud of her!

So Ben started running races in the spring, and Maria is now racing too. That means I'm next - I plan to run a 5K in the future, but possibly not until spring, mostly due to the weather. I haven't run on the road, but am doing about 2.5 miles on the treadmill four nights a week. So I'm pretty sure I could do a 5K. We're very happy with how physically fit our family has become!