Triathlon day

Here’s a race report for my amazing triathlete wonder-child, but from my perspective:

The alarm went off at 4:50 a.m., which is just a few minutes before the stupid birds start in with their squawking, so I’m kind of used to being awake at that time. By which I mean I was feeling pretty alert and excited to see Mik race. I was also nervous. I had driven the bike course with him on Saturday and had been shocked at the difficulty of it. I tried to stay positive in front of him, but there’s a not-kidding-around four-mile-long hill in there, and he’s just an inexperienced, overconfident kid riding a 30-pound mountain bike that he likes to keep in the same gear all the time.

Mik was nervous, too, but he had several friends there who were swimming on relay teams, so at least there were distractions.

He and the swim team kids put themselves at the front of the pack in the primo position, and I was glad that no one seemed to object. As it turned out, three of them were among the first four out of the water. Mik was fourth so I stopped watching the swim after that:

The first transition went well, but after that it was worry time for me.

But the worry wasn’t too severe, because he was back from the 16-mile ride in about an hour and 10 minutes. WHEW. I was not concerned at all about the run, because I knew he wouldn’t crash or get hit by a car, and he could walk as much as he needed to. But he must not have walked much, because I was surprised at how quickly we saw him again:

Bam! It turned out he was the only one in his 13-14 age group, but he was still delighted with his gold medal, and they announced that he was the youngest person to complete the full race.

He had about five minutes to savor his triumph and talk to his fans and then we drove him to the pool just in time for his first swim meet event of the day. He jumped into the pool and got a best time in the 100 breast, even though he was still wearing his tri shorts. He also had two more pretty decent events, and then he got to go home and play games on the computer.

M.H. and I still had several hours of swim meet volunteering ahead of us. It was brutal.

We got home around 6 and put on The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. I blinked and it was already up to the troll part. I blinked again and Galadriel was on the screen. I blinked again and Dex was home from his climbing weekend in the mountains to find his entire family sound asleep on two couches. I don’t know what happened after that because I put myself to bed. The end!