This weekend was a busy one for the household triathletes! Jenn was away for a half Ironman in Chattanooga and back here in Bermuda the kids went for it in the annual Iron Kids race at Clearwater beach.
Storming the beach
Where’s my bike?
Saturdays are still fairly busy with football (soccer) and gymnastics, we figured we could squeeze the Iron Kids race into our day after these other activities were done. Jenn was away, as mentioned, and as I am not entirely familiar with the whole race-prep routine I didn’t realize that planning to arrive to the race a mere half hour beforehand would not nearly be enough! I think they ended up starting the race a little early as well. So we rock up about 10 minutes before they kick off, I thought were were doing ok for time – as it turned out it was a mad scramble to get them signed in, race numbers sorted, bikes racked in transition, and down to the start line in time. But we did it (with the help of a few of the volunteers…)!
The race itself went pretty well for both kids, they enjoyed it and did pretty well! We were a little concerned that Ryley – this being her first time doing an actual 100m swim – would get discouraged and not want to complete the race. But she did great, diving in at the beginning and swimming / bouncing (they could touch bottom) her way to the end of the swim. Josh’s swim was a little more orthodox, he plowed through to the bike, no problem! The bike and run was just fine for the both of them, Ryley was on her new (to her) bigger pink bike which made things easier and Josh has figured out his road bike and comfortably paced himself to the run transition.
As both kids were on the road at the same time, I was struggling to keep track of both – Josh was of course way ahead of Ryley by the time the bike leg was over so I didn’t see his run at all! I saw Ryley when she came shooting out of transition giving it full steam on the run. She zoomed to the finish where we met up with Josh and exchanged high-fives and hugs on a job well done! When all was said and done, Josh came in 8th of 14 (17:47) and Ryley 10th of 19 (24:25) in their respective categories, great results!
Iron Kids!
Iron Woman!
The following day was Jenn’s half Ironman in Chattanooga. She’s been training for some time and was looking to beat her time from last year! Unfortunately Jenn’s usual training partner, Kandis, opted out of this one, but there were about 20 athletes from Bermuda that went to take part in the race so she certainly wasn’t alone!
There was plenty of uncertain weather leading up to the race, with thunderstorms lurking about and plenty of rain. Luckily, Jenn tells me that come race day they managed to get the race in without any rain or thunderstorm issues! They did, however, shorten the swim a bit as it was evident from the pros’ race beforehand that there was an unusually fast current and the age-groupers would likely struggle. So bearing that in mind Jenn’s swim time was 12 minutes faster than last years! 🙂 So while you can’t really compare swim times from last year, I’m sure she would have been faster…!
She rocked the bike portion, smoking last year’s time by about 9 minutes, and she made up time with the transitions as well. The run section tends to be her nemesis, however; unfortunately this was the only area she didn’t improve upon from last year, though she wasn’t far off! Guess she’ll just have to try again! 😉 Overall her time was 5:25:23, good for a respectable 46th place in her division.
Good job, Wilson athletes! I’m proud of all of you!
