I want to do that mommy!
We were leaving the library and she had just noticed a flyer advertising a youth triathlon.
When I brought my tiny baby girl home from the hospital almost 10 years ago, I couldn’t imagine then that triathlon was going to become a part of our lives. I had not run in years. I had never swam a lap in my life. I had just started biking for the first time in my adult life after our friends, who were moving to Colorado last October, left us their beach cruisers.
When my Dear Daughter (DD for short) expressed an interest in this sport, no doubt inspired by our current neighbors (the wife, a marathoner and the husband, a triathlete), I wanted to encourage her willingness to try something new, something hard. Pre-Zoloft me would have shut the idea down immediately. New Sarah however was up for the challenge.
A few days later, we showed up at Hawaii Triathlon Center. Coach Ben welcomed us in. A few kids were stretching on the floor. A couple of dads were standing in a corner. We were complete novices joining a group that had been meeting for a few years already.
That day, we biked for almost 2 hours straight. We biked on the busiest streets of our little town. We biked up the highway. We biked down a steep hill. We biked on gravel along the marsh. We biked, painstakingly trying to keep up with our clunky beach cruisers. We arrived a full 10 minutes after everyone else but we had made it through practice #1 and we were both hooked. Everyone had been warm and friendly. The exercise had been challenging but had stretched us in the best of ways.
We made it to every Sunday practice afterwards. DD ran with her Auntie next door a few times a week and swam in their pool on occasion. Three weeks prior to the race, she even borrowed a real race bike. She was as ready as she could have gotten in less than 2 months.
On race day, we had to be on location at 6.15 am. Our neighbor, Larry, loaded our bikes in his truck so we wouldn’t have to pedal for 30 minutes in the dark just to get there. DD and I drove together. It was still pitch black when we arrived. A bright spot light was illuminating the already filled racks. We walked to the sign up tents where DD received an ankle locator. She was assigned number 30, coincidentally her birth day. The sky was cloudless, a welcome change after all the rain and wind we had experienced in the weeks before. The ocean was calm. The jellyfish were nowhere to be seen. Conditions were nearly perfect.
I’m not sure who was was most excited. Her Dad and I were so proud already.
Clearly our little girl was no longer so little. She was embarking on a journey, we had never undertaken. This was not just the start of a race. Symbolically, this was the beginning of her life apart from us. She would be facing the ocean alone. She would pedal around the entire Lanikai loop on her own.
And so she did.
She ran into the waves and waded as much as she swam. She hopped on her bike in good time and was in the front of the pack as she climbed the initial hill. She was, however, one of the last competitors to return. It took her so long, I was truly worried she had fallen into a ditch. Thankfully, she came back in one piece. She descended down the last curve sooo tentatively, it looked as if she was going in slow motion. She dismounted silently, staring at us, shell-shocked. (We later found out that she had had a hard time squeezing the breaks and felt very scared of potential cars backing out of their driveways. She didn’t shift gear once!)
I asked if she wanted my support for the running portion and she acquiesced. I biked alongside as she ran, cheering her on the whole time. She didn’t stop once. She breathed, grimaced, huffed, puffed and trudged along for 1 mile that probably felt like 10. She persevered despite being tired and she crossed the finish line, thereby accomplishing both goals she had set for herself:
1: to finish the race (in 37 minutes 32 seconds)
2: to not finish last (four other kids arrived after her.)
She didn’t come first; far from it and yet this was undoubtedly a victory.
She had been courageous in choosing to sign up for the event, diligent in preparing for the race, and resolute about finishing it. The pride she rightly felt, she had earned. What an accomplishment!
When I was 9 years old, I didn’t have half her strength, mental or physical. This little person, who’s always been in the fifth percentile in height and weight or not at all on the chart, who is the size of children a few years younger than her, has a spirit to be reckoned with.
She is passionate.
She is fierce.
She is a nine year old triathlete!
Thank you to coach Ben and the team of volunteers who invest so much of their time to provide such enriching experiences to our children. They do it for the love of the sport, the love of our community, the love of our kiddos. It takes a village indeed and we are grateful.
Awwwwww, so sweet and so fierce!!!! Loved this post! What a great job by your daughter! And how cool that you were like “yes, let’s go for it”!!!