Monday, April 4, 2011

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.

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