I had a moral decision to make today (well, I made it on Friday, but still). I had planned on running the 5K for a BBKer that had recently been diagnosed with brain cancer. He has fought well and is astounding the doctors with his recovery and progress. The race wasn't a financial benefit for him, but would go to Huntsman Cancer Institute. As much as I support him and want him to know my heart and love goes out to their family, I knew I wouldn't be 'missed' by the crowd there. My daughter asked me Thursday if I had any races on Saturday "ummmm,well...no, not really, but yes...why?" She said that they were combining the adult and kid iTri classes at the gym and she wanted me to go to class with her. My 11 year old daughter wanted me to come with her. How can I refuse that precious time? I've been doing races/runs every Saturday for the past 5 weeks and will be gone next week for LV Ragnar. There will come a time very soon that she won't want me around. I thought about it longer than I probably should've then told her that I would choose to spend time with her at the tri class instead of with running friends. I felt like my support would be put to better use with her. Not that Dean doesn't care, but I know if he was presented with the same situation he wouldn't hesitate to spend the time with family, because he knows how precious and fleeting the time is. So, with confidence I slept in and joined my daughter for the tri class. We started in the pool - 30 min to do as many 200yd sets you could. We swam them race style up and back then under the lanes. Good practice! I got 7 of them in - 1400yds. I might have been able to sneak one more in, but after my first lap one of my daughters friends who was doing the class with her mom for the first time was on the side of the pool fretting and on the verge of tears. She only feels comfortable swimming backstroke. It was overwhelming to her to see all these kids (even her age) doing free-style so easily and, I'm sure, was afraid people would laugh or make fun of her. I gave her a little pep talk and we got in the pool together. I waited for her on the first lap to get down and back and feel confident enough to finish the next 3 laps. She did great and ended up finishing 3 sets. Lauren did 7 sets too. She was trying to beat me, but I hung with her! She is a great little swimmer. The bike...oh, the bike. I think of everything in the tri world this is the one that gets me. I hate the computers on the bikes now too...just too many numbers to deal with in my head! I set up my bike next to Lauren and we had 30 min to get in as many miles as we could. Well, I prefer to ride with some resistance. Probably more than most people, but then the teacher had us ride hills too. Poo. I could barely keep up with Lauren on mileage. Then I noticed I'm dying and breathing hard and she still can breathe with her mouth closed! Well, I made her add some resistance on and then not cheat on the full turns on the hill adds. I finally caught up to her miles :) She did more than most of the kids, but I was at the bottom of the rung for miles on the bike. Still 11 miles in 30 minutes is a good 22mph pace! I think pretty darn good. I don't understand how some were getting 13+, that really isn't typical for average riders to go 26mph+. Anyway, my own snobby rationalization for being the bottom I guess. Finally, it was time for the run! They had us running on the track and every 3 laps we would signal to the teacher that would record a tally mark. My goal was to get 4 miles in the 30 minutes. I finally figured out that when I had 11 tally marks I would have 3 miles. So, I asked for my 5K split on the next lap 23:13 - 7:30 pace. I pretty much stayed consistent with that pace to finish the 4 miles with just 7 seconds to spare. 29:48 for the 4 miles. 7:29 pace...just under MP and not even 10K pace. Yeah, I was tired - I guess :) more rationalization. Lauren got 36 laps in (11/mile), so just over a 5K in the 30 minutes. She and her friend (the one from the swim story) hung together the whole time and kept a good solid pace the entire time. Way to go girls! They counted every time I lapped them - I think it was 13 or 14 or something like that. So, we both finished almost a sprint tri and I had a wonderful morning with my daughter! Her friends mom wanted to go outside for a few more miles so I tagged along on the next 4 outside. It was a wonderful morning! The girls had fun hanging out at the rec center afterward while moms ran off too :) We were going to meet at frogurt afterward, but they didn't open until 1:00 - poo. But, we had a great time regardless!
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