My 12-year-old daughter Katie has been a competitive swimmer for 2 years. She’s built for power, and excels in short distance events. Butterfly and breast stroke are her favorites. She is definitely not a runner. She refers to the mile run in PE at school as a “death march.”
I’m strictly a recreational age-grouper in triathlon, usually finishing well into the second half of my wave. Katie came with me to packet pickup for Boulder Peak (Colorado), and got caught up in the festive atmosphere. They also had cool swim stuff at the expo. A few weeks later, she announced to our complete surprise that she wanted to do a Kids Triathlon. There was one coming up in Boulder, and another one a week later in Fort Collins. Kids Tris are short enough that most reasonably fit kids could do them. So we entered her in the Boulder Kids Tri, but I cautioned her that unlike her swimming experience, this was not an event she was likely to win.
To my surprise, she was not even near the front on the swim leg. Middle-of-the-pack, but she came out of the water with a competitieve look on her face. She even passed a few kids on the bike, which is surprising because they were kids who’d beaten her in the swim. She held up well enough on the run, and finished exhausted but satisfied. They don’t keep times or places in Kids’ Tris, but she’d enjoyed the competition aspect. Still, she had no desire to EVER do such an event again.
A few days later though, she decided to enter the Fort Collins Kids Tri after all, even though the distances were longer. She figured that without all those fast Boulder kids, she might finish a little higher up. She’s not a triathlete or even an endurance athlete by nature, but she’s definitely up for a little competition.
Once again, a number of kids in her age group beat her in the swim. This is rare for her, as she’s an excellent club and school swimmer. Who ARE these kids? It was cold and rainy that morning, but she was smiling as she left T1 and headed out onto the bike course. Later, when the PA announced that the first cyclist was approaching T2, we were stunned by what we saw: Katie, all alone, in first place. The course marshalls had to direct her, there was no long line of people to follow. I’ll never know how this feels. I can only imagine. I resisted the urge to tell her to run for her life. “Go, Katie!” said it all.
She held on for third, and had a laughing, giddy time at the post-race festivities. I should also mention that this was my first time as a race volunteer, and I was inspired by the energy and enthusiasm of the race directors and the money raised for the Childrens Hospital.