First Long bike for my girls

As some on you know that have read the blog for while, my two girls, both three years old will be doing their first race this summer.  It is the Kids, Splash Pedal & Dash that is part of the Pacific Crest Sports Weekend in Sunriver Oregon.

In terms of full disclosure - I am a nice person and really am not "that dad".  My wife is concerned that each time I bring up this race - I sound like that jerk dad that is pushing his fat nearsighted kid into baseball.  I'm not totally sure why I want my girls to race but I think most of it has to do with how much I enjoy it and I would love to share that great experience.  Plus, I would like to gravy train once they hit the ITU and Olympics.  I can just see the NBC coverage with me and my wife looking supportive and crying tears of joy... oh sorry, I guess I am that dad.

Their training plan is slightly different from my 140.6 plan.  All they really need to learn between now and the end of June is to be able to slide down practically any slide without hesitation, ride their bikes (with training wheels if still needed) and run a while.

Slides - no real problem unless I'm not sliding with them.  Need to work on a plan that doesn't involve me sliding but I love slides so much...

Splashing through pools - not a problem for either girl unless they want to play in the water.

Bike - Until yesterday they had only ridden their trikes.  Both girls have played with their bikes but our driveway just is better with trikes.  So my wife and I loaded them up yesterday and headed to the walking path along the Columbia River.  The girls were so excited to exercise and we took off.  They ended up riding about a mile and did better than I expected.  Now that they have steering down, I think we may have a chance.

Run - I think this will be fine.  They ended up kind of running a brick yesterday and felt great.

"My legs hurt from biking" was the comment after naps.  So we sat on the floor and stretched and I learned a very important lesson about daddy's teaching their little ones to stretch.  The phrase "Watch me" really doesn't allow them to stretch much.  I tell them to lean forward and and touch toes and I can barely reach and they can scratch their back with their feet.

Great day of training for them and even better day just being together as a family and watching them learn.  I wish my training was as simple and that my stretching was as easy.

Taking your kids to "Your" stores

I had to stop by two stores yesterday and so decided to make it a family activity.  The first was stop by a running store before my coupon ran out to buy a new pair of shoes..  The second was to make an exchange at a bike shop.

I really like running stores and bike shops.  If you'd asked me before yesterday, I would've told you that I like to look at things at the stores.  Well that isn't quite true, I like to touch things at stores.  I would have never known this unless I had my two girls with me who were touching everything.  I kept telling them, "Look, don't touch".  They didn't seem to be listening and instead were touching everything.  They were trying on hats, playing with the foam rollers, touching every shoe within reach.  They played with the socks, tried the treadmill and wanted to try on clothes.  As I "calmly" and "sternly" told them that if they don't stop touching, I noticed that they were just copying me.  As I waited at the counter to ring up the purchase (Nike Lunarglide 2)  I became aware that between the girls and myself, we had touched nearly everything on the counter.  I was setting a horrible example.

We then went to the bike store and the pattern repeated again.  I told them not to touch and I proceeded to touch everything and they copied.

It wasn't the relaxing trip to the stores that I hoped for.  I felt like a hypocrite every few seconds.  I know adults are allowed to touch but maybe, just maybe, I need to rethink how we shop when together as a family.

Do you think this will work?
1.  They only touch things that I hand them?
2.  I only touch things that I trust them not to break.
3.  I make them wear really baggy pants when we go to stores so that they they are too busy holding their pants up to try to touch things?

Maybe it's me that needs to forget the belt, and the wallet...

Most important 30 seconds for my training

I'm learning a certain 30 seconds of my day are one of the most crucial seconds for my training.  I am working on a name for this time period and would have it solved except I can't come up with a name with a cool sounding acroynm.  I really want it to have the letters S and T and Q. 

Those thirty seconds translate into a difference between 2500 yards of valuable swiming and no swiming.  This 1/2 minute of time is the difference between 1.5 hours on the bike and a big zero.

Okay...I'm sure you are just begging for the answer. 

Those thirty seconds are the first thirty after my alarm goes off.  It only takes me about 5 seconds to realize that it isn't a dream.  It takes another 5 seconds to find the chiming phone and turn it off.  Then I have about 10 seconds to decide whether there was some mistake with the alarm going off (is today my rest day?).  That leaves me with 10 seconds to either get out of bed or not.  If I get out of bed, then training happens.  If not, well I do get another 1.5 hours of guilty lazy regretful sleep. 

I don't remember ever feelin guilt, regret, and lazy if I get out of bed during the magical SQT timeframe.