Today, Liam competed in his second triathlon, the same Kids of Steel event at Rondeau Provincial Park that he did last year. I didn't have to ask/encourage/persuade him to register at all. He said earlier in the summer that he was going to do it, simple as that.
The water was rougher than it was last year. Not rough-rough, but choppy enough to have small waves breaking on the shore. Not ideal for swimming, when your practice has been in a pool.
He also moved up an age group. This year he competed with the 8 and 9 year olds, and the distances increased quite a bit: 100m swim, 5 km bike, 1 km run. Here are the kids having their pre-race meeting with the race director.
Out into the water they go. Luckily the swim course is pretty shallow and they can touch most of the way. There is also really good lifeguard coverage; there are more lifeguards out there than there are kids, in case anyone needs to be helped along.
Liam struggled a bit with the swim, but with conditions being what they were, I can't blame him. And I know the feeling all too well. Still, it didn't seem to get him down at all. He came into shore a little behind schedule but none the worse for the wear.
He aced transitioning. It was like he was an old pro. He did better than I usually do at finding where he had racked his bike!
I figured the bike would be his strong suit, since he loves riding his bike so much and does it almost every day. He was slower on the bike than we'd anticipated, but I'll bet that's because he was recovering from a hard swim effort. I won't say much about the fact that a couple of the kids on course, who were riding Felt bikes and wearing Zoot unitards and clearly had more invested in the sport at the age of 8 than I do at 38, were being paced by their parents on their bikes, fully outfitted in their tri kits, too. This is blatantly against the rules and it would be one thing if they were total newbies helping their first-timer kids out... quite another when these kids have travelled 3 hours to this race and have clearly been touring the provincial circuit all summer.
OK, I guess I did have something to say about it, after all.
Off on the run. Liam flew through the run and made up some good ground. Too bad it wasn't a longer distance - I think this is where he could have closed some of the gap that opened up on the swim!
Still looking fresh at the finish.
Mallory was so proud of him that she wanted to have her picture taken with him. We were all so proud of him. I know sometimes I have moments during races where I'll all like, what the HELL was I thinking signing up for this?? I'm paying for this? I'm doing this for fun in my spare time... why?? I'm glad that he seemed to enjoy it so much and that he persevered even when the start of the race was hard and probably a little scary for him.
Oh crap... it's my turn tomorrow.
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