Races

So this post is to give an idea of what our family does for exercise and really as a hobby these days. Last June Pete asked Soren if she would like to try a kids triathlon and she said yes. It was such a great event and she had so much fun that she ended up doing many more over the summer, even travelling to Shreveport and Austin to compete. In the kid's races, every finisher is a winner and they give them all medals, but they are also chip timed events. You wear a chip on your ankle and it times each leg of the race as well as your overall time and your transition time. Going by these times, Soren has been in the top three of every race she has entered. She is quite talented. At the end of the summer, Pete decided that she was ready for a racing bike and bought her a trek. The cutest thing I have ever seen! It has improved her bike time a lot. It is only May 30th and she has already done 3 triathlons this season and has her 4th this coming weekend. She will go to triathlon camp at the end of June and has at least 2 races each month.

Along with the triathlons, Soren has run many 5k races. She and Pete ran the Dad Fest 5k as a team last Father's day and took 1st place. Soren has done many more on her own including the Cowtown 5k in which she was 3rd out of 250 girls her age.

She is also doing swim team this summer to polish up on her strokes. She is very athletic like her dad and it is so much fun to watch her compete.

After seeing how much fun Soren had in her first triathlon, Pete and I got interested. I had been jogging for about 3 months to try to get in shape and made a goal to run a 5k sometime that summer. Pete is always in shape and was working with a guy who was a long time biker, so he bought a racing bike right away and got started training. We joined the YMCA so we could practice swimming (which was SO much harder than I thought it would be!). By July I had a new racing bike and on our 11th anniversary in August, Pete and I went down to Blanco State Park and did our first triathlon. It was a mini sprint 300 meter swim, 10 mile bike and 2 mile run which was so perfect for a first race. We shocked ourselves and walked away with medals. Pete was 1st in his age group and 4th overall out of 232 racers. I was 2nd in my age group and 31st overall. It was such a great experience and I have been hooked on the sport ever since then.

This summer we have some lofty goals. Pete is training to complete an iron man distance triathlon. That will be 2.5 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and then a marathon 26.2 mile run. That is so crazy to me. There are so many people that can do these races that the actual Iron Man races fill up a full year before the race, so Pete found an iron man distance in Oklahoma City in September and that is his goal. He ran the Cowtown marathon in March, and then started the months long training for the iron man. I am going to try to complete a half iron man distance in August. It will be 1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike and a 13 mile run. I am very excited and my goal is to cross the finish line before they shut down the course. They allow 8 hours and if you are not off the course by then you are listed as DNF (did not finish). If all goes well with that race then I would like to train for the Whiterock marathon in December. I have always thought that to run a marathon would be an amazing feat, and if I can do an 8 hour race I think I can run one. We will see in August if I keep that as a goal or not!

We are enjoying this sport so much. We all have our training guides and work around each other's schedules to fit it all in. It is great to have a hobby that we can all do together. Pete even bought a second bike that he could pull Reese behind in a trailer until she is big enough for the trail-a-bike. Hopefully we are in for a great season of racing.