Still not a strong swimmer yet, Amanda lost steam about 75 meters into the race, but held on strong to the finish. Although pooped, she popped herself right out of the pool just as the other competitors were wrapping up their swim.

She was in race mode and we ran over to T1 and I watched as she gamely tried to put socks on wet feet and then cram her toes into tied running shoes that had not been loosened. My fault for not catching that. I decided to go sockless since it was only a mile to see how my feet would hold up as a test for the upcoming Rage triathlon.

While we were trying to shove Amanda’s feet in her shoes, our competitors entered T1. We were losing valuable time.

Finally, we got her shoes on and we were out the chute and started down the trail for the run around Sunset Pond. At this point, the lead was ours to lose.

About two minutes in, I noticed that we had company behind us and they were making ground. I told Amanda, "Look, this is ours to lose at this point. They’re gaining on us so we need to pick it up a bit."

Now, it’s only fair to tell you at this point of the story that there were only two teams. While the local park & rec folks had high hopes for the third annual event, only two families showed up. Even though we were racing against a family of three (dad, mom and an older boy), I’ll be God-damned if we’re coming in last with such a short field.

We kept our pace up and had our "show" sprint to the finish line for the cameras. We put a little over four minutes between us and the other team so I’ll call it a good win…and a lot of fire in the belly of my daughter for the next race. Plus, I have a feeling we’ll see the other family again and, with everyone’s family honor at stake, I’m sure we’ll have some good competition in the future.

Unfortunately, we’re not having much luck on eBay or any of the other online sites. Being a cheapskate, I don’t want to pay $700+ for a new bike that this 10-year-old will outgrow in a year. At this point it looks like I may have to (gulp) build her a bike on a used road frame (47 cm or below?) with 650cc wheels.

Any suggestions from the bike wrenchers?

Amanda rarin’ to go moments before the start of her first official solo triathlon.

Las Vegas is starting to grow up and become more than a cultural mecca for those New Yorkers and Los Angelinos willing to part with a few hundred brain cells and a few thousand dollars in our multitude of casinos. We are slowly, but surely, beginning to add “real” culture to our community and yesterday marked another milestone in that advancement.

Saturday morning marked the return of the Clark County Junior Triathlon for kids between the ages of 6-13. Held at the Desert Breeze Aquatic Facility, the race was comprised of different distances for the age groups of 6-7, 8-9, 10-11, and 12-13. For Amanda’s group (10-13), the distance was 100 yards in the indoor pool, followed by a dash to T1, five laps around the parking lot for 1.75 miles and finishing it all off with 1-mile run.

Rather than a mass start, the race director held four different races, one for each age group. Once the last person from the previous age group crossed the finish line, the next group would head to the pool to get ready for their start.

This was Amanda’s first solo triathlon and it was neat to see the butterflies take residence in her stomach, instead of mine, as race time drew near. Unfortunately also like her father (and 100 percent his fault), Amanda had little training time under her belt. The night before, we sat down and talked and made sure her main goal was to cross the finish line…and if she had a chance to pass someone, do it! Other than that, just enjoy the sweat and the sound of her breath.

Swim (100 yards)
There were 16 kids in the 10-11 age group and we set up with two kids in each lane. When the whistle blew, Amanda took off in a nice freestyle. Most kids were using freestyle, with one or two breaststroking and an occasional backstroker . She kept a steady pace the first 50 yards and stayed up with the main pack. After that, she ran out of gas and slowed down to a heroic, but ineffective, crawl. As anyone who’s swam competitively knows, once your form goes, you’re working twice as hard to go half the speed. It just kills you.

At that point, she quickly went from middle of the pack to second-to-last.

T1
One parent was allowed to help the junior triathlete in transition and I helped Amanda get out of the pool, dry her feet get her socks and shoes on. We were a bit clumsy, but we got her going and out of T1.

Bike (1.75 miles)
Amanda was making up some ground here and held strong the first three laps. She lost a bit more energy on the fourth and fifth, but was hanging in with the main pack.

Now, here’s where things get fishy. Every age group had a different number of laps to complete. In Amanda’s case, it was five laps. As she came around on her fourth lap, her pack suddenly disintegrated. Although there were volunteers stationed on one corner to count laps for the kids, many of the parents were giving lap counts to their kids…and several were confused on how many laps their kids were supposed to do.

I’ll leave it at that. Amanda finished her five laps.

Run (1 mile)
The out-and-back course had a minor incline on the first half. Amanda started off at a decent pace and then I saw her stop to walk about a third of the way in. I took off after her to give some moral support. By the time I rounded the bend, however, she was running again and was quickly nearing the turnaround point. I held back and waited for her.

At that point, I saw two boys on the return leg battling it out for the lead. They were shoulder to shoulder and it looked like an epic race in the making. But, when one slipped ahead by more than a pace, he would look over his shoulder and veer over to cut off the other boy. One of the volunteers yelled at the kid to knock it off and “be a good sport!”

My wife later told me that this shenanigans continued as the boys neared the finish line, neck and neck. It finally ended when both boys tripped over each other and went sprawling, assholes over elbows, across the pavement. Hopefully a nice case of road rash will be a reminder to the lesson they hopefully learned about sportsmanship.

I kept Amanda company until the finish line was in sight. At that point, she said she wanted to walk for a bit and would run again when she got closer to the finish line. Absent throughout the entire race, my “Stage Dad” kicked in: “You will not walk with the finish line in sight. You have two minutes of suffering left and you can run for two minutes.”

She ran.

Fifty yards from the finish, that run turned into one hell of a sprint. Amazing how much energy we develop the closer we get to the finish line, isn’t it?

Amanda finished as the 7th place female in her age group and has been very proud of her accomplishment ever since. The lane number that is etched with red marker on her hand is not getting washed off and I’m sure will be proudly shown around the school tomorrow.

Asked if she would do it again, “Oh yes!” she exclaimed.

I’m turning the keyboard over to Amanda to sum up the experience in her own words: “It was exciting, interesting, hard, and some good exercise. My legs are sore today, but otherwise I feel great! I’m now a triathlete!”

1) They’re adding new colors so the widget will be better integrated into your blog’s design.

2) They’re adding a new “Fitness” category! It’s only a matter of time before we can get a triathlon or endurance sports category.

If you have a multisport or fitness blog and haven’t signed up yet, please consider doing so. The more people we get using this free service, the more tri-evangelism we can spread across the Net.

Enough blog business for me for today. I got sucked into a little comment debate on Thursday’s “Letter from a Special Forces Team Leader” and hopefully will have things calmed down. It’s off to the pool for a swim-run brick with my daughter Amanda. She has her first kids’ tri next weekend and she needs to get her practice in.

As for me, it’s three weeks and change until my last tri of the season, the Pumpkinman (click to view a video of last year’s race). It has a grueler of a hill that takes you from Lake Mead to Boulder City.

Some folks from Pro Cyclery (the team I haven’t played with since early summer when school started up) will be out there tomorrow a.m. to ride the course. Although I’m sure I’ll be dropped within a couple of minutes, it’ll be a good test to see if I need to put another cassette on the back so I can save my legs for the run, or if I’m good to go as is.

Find your edge and dance upon it.

hak

That hasn’t given me much time to finish the brief race report from the Lake Las Vegas Triathlon sprint relay I did with my 10-year-old daughter. I can tell you that it was hot (pushing 100 degrees during the latter stages of the race) and I’ve never seen so many people walking on a run due to the heat. I can also tell you that I flirted with the podium for the first time ever. Actually held on for a bit.

Nonetheless, somebody captured us on video celebrating the completion of our first family triathlon:

Find your edge and dance upon it.

hak

I still can’t figure out why an English major would want to go back and subject himself to this insanity. I guess it falls along the lines of life being too short and having too many interests to dedicate one career to encompassing everything.

Anyway…my daughter and I competed in our first triathlon relay on Saturday. I’ll get the report put together and share it tomorrow.

Here’s to you and your friends & family this Labor Day.

hak

I’ve been here since Friday visiting my wife’s homeland and enjoying the humid, but refreshingly less-than-115-degree weather here. It’s so great to see things green and lush. It’s also amazing to see how my daughters just slipped right into this life of family and community that we don’t have in Las Vegas.

Oh…and basements! God, I forgot what great playrooms basements can be. Just a wonderful way to unplug from the world for a few days.

My family is on their way to the Big Apple to take in the sights for a few days while I have to scramble back to work and start the next round of pre-med classes tomorrow night.

I’m at the airport in Rochester waiting for the boarding to start in the next couple of minutes. I’ll land in Cinci in a couple of hours and then hop a flight back home to Vegas. No matter how valiantly I tried, I’m stuck in the middle seat on that last leg. That means that some large, smelly person will test my ability to turn inward and focus on my posture and breath rather than their posture (leaning on me) and breath (let’s just not go there). Nothing like a wee bit of lung butter flying among the passengers, right?

I’ll get back on promised article schedule here starting tomorrow and back to the high-wire balancing act of the “real” life.

Find your edge and dance upon it.

hak

 

Driving through Virgin River Gorge on the way to St. George, Utah

St. George is also home to Snow Canyon State Park. Apart from the incredible red rock formations, the park also features a series ass-kicking series of climbs. You can check out a panorama at the park’s web site. The hill starts just out of frame on the interactive panorama. Naturally, my bike, El Lobo Gris, was coming along with the plan calling for me to sneak out early Saturday morning to test my fitness and mental tenacity on this route. The first, and last, time I was here a year ago, I had the following experience:

“The ride was fantastic with some gorgeous red rock scenery. It was getting a bit warm though and the big challenge was the nut kicker hill. I averaged 4 mph going up that hill and had to dismount three times. From the start to the top of that hill took me 50 minutes to cover a measly 7.4 miles. Once I exited the park, I topped out at 38 mph on the descents and took only 20 minutes to cover the remaining 10 miles.”

Needless to say, I was anxious to return and see how I had improved over the past 13 months.

When I woke up Saturday morning at our motel in St. George, all of my desire to challenge Snow Canyon evaporated when my daughters pleaded with me to go swimming with them at the motel pool. You see, living in Las Vegas, we’re in a desert…in case you didn’t know. Any chance we get to play in water that is not the urine-soaked municipal pool, is a highly treasured activity.

With work and night school, I haven’t had as much play time with my girls as I would have liked over the past six weeks.

Decision time: Make a much needed deposit in the bike training account or make a much needed deposit in the family account?

El Lobo stayed in the motel room and I went swimming with my girls.

As age-group athletes, I think we sometimes forget why we’re training in the first place. I would guesstimate that maybe five percent of us are actually training for some tangible goal such as turning pro. If you’re training for your livelihood, then you do what you have to do. In my case, one bike ride wasn’t going to make or break my fitness. People like me train for the mental and physical challenge. The race is not the end point, it is just one waypoint along the journey.

At times, I forget that.

It can be all too easy to get self-involved in endurance sports as we strive to streamline our performance.  

There are an endless number of races in my future. I only have one time around with my daughters to make the best memories possible.

As we were packing up later that morning, I had no regrets for missing my dance with Snow Canyon. The time with my daughters was precious. However, when no one was looking, I did take my bike for a lap around the motel parking lot. 

Find your edge and dance upon it.

hak

 

 

 

Although using this publishing space as a personal journal of my experiences can be a nice mental release for me, and entertaining to you if I’m lucky, it appears most people are interested in learning something about multisports. Not necessarily what I ate for breakfast.

Go figure.

“Gee, honey. Look. Hak had a bowl of cornflakes this morning. I never realized eating a bowl of cereal could be so laden with drama.”

As a perpetual student of endurance multisports, I am undertaking a journey.  Along the way, I will discover things that will help me or hinder me. These lessons are what I want to share with you. Not necessarily every step I take along the way.

Being a relatively selfish bastard, I will focus on multisport activities of interest to me. Namely short-course triathlon, trail running, strength training, meditation, yoga, road cycling and so forth. When I get the free time to train for a 70.3 or an Ironman-distance race, I’ll branch off in that direction. For now, there are no shortage of Ironman-focused web sites where you can get your going long fix.

To keep us both happy, I will be bringing in some guest authors to share their experiences, training and lifestyle strategies in the months ahead. I’ll also start posting based on a daily theme:

• Mondays: Meditation & Yoga - We’ll explore the “softer” side of training that keeps us mentally and physically healthy and supple.
• Tuesdays: Training - Learn different strategies on multisport endurance and speed training. I’ll also cover strength training just because it scares the bejesus out of most endurance athletes.
• Wednesdays: Multisport Life - In short, how to find balance between training, family, work and/or school.
• Thursdays: Race Strategies -Tips and strategies for race day.
• Friday: Fuel - Nutrition is the savior or nemesis of all athletes. Let’s figure out how to make it our saviors.
• Saturday: Bloggeriterary Review - Best of the blogs from the past week.
• Sunday: Fit Family - How to include our families in our passion for endurance sports; or how to not sleep on the couch so much.

We’re all here to learn from each other so feel free to comment away on what you like, don’t like or feel like you have a contribution to make.

If you want to submit an article, please send me an e-mail with your idea: hakadoru@gmail.com. You’ll get a link back to your blog and a chance to introduce yourself to another crowd.

Find your edge and dance upon it.

hak